


Anagnorisis

by Maiden_of_Asgard



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shipwrecked, Captor/Captive, Enemies to Lovers, Expanded Universe, F/M, Huddling For Warmth, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Reader-Insert, Slow Burn, Snuggling to survive, TROPETOWN USA, Wilderness Survival, reluctant allies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-04
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2020-10-06 19:15:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 11
Words: 38,508
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20512106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maiden_of_Asgard/pseuds/Maiden_of_Asgard
Summary: Raised on the rough-and-tumble world known to most of the galaxy as the Smuggler's Moon, you've always appreciated the value of information. Who can blame you for passing along some of the stories that you overhear while you're tending bar, in exchange for a much-needed credit or two? It's a risk, but you've always assumed it's a minor one.After all, what are the odds that a nobody from the Outer Rim will manage to catch the attention of anyone important?





	1. Chapter 1

There’s a scrape of wrenching metal, and blinding sunlight explodes into the crushed cabin of the shuttle. You gasp, dazed from the crash and choking on smoke and exhaust, scrabbling to free yourself from your restraints before you lose consciousness altogether. Your arms are numb and your palms clammy, and the cuffs on your wrists feel unbearably heavy. 

It’s no use - you’re trapped. 

A shadow falls across you, and flash of red whizzes past your face and bites into the metal behind you. The harness holding you trapped in your seat goes slack, and you collapse in a heap on the crumpled durasteel floor. Before you can push yourself onto your feet and attempt an escape, a black-gloved hand seizes the front of your jacket and yanks you out of the shuttle. 

You sprawl on your back a few meters from the remains of Supreme Leader Kylo Ren’s command shuttle, leaves and charred grass sticking to your sweat-slicked skin as you wheeze and try to clear the smoke from your eyes. The man himself stalks around the crash sight, his form a dark blur in the periphery of your vision. His saber still glows and hums in his hand, and you roll onto your belly, trying to crawl as far away from him as you possibly can before he decides you’re worth further attention. It’s probably stupid to try to run, but you aren’t dead yet, and you’d sincerely prefer to stay that way. 

The crash is on the edge of a thickly-forested valley; some part of you can’t help but be impressed that he’d managed to land the shuttle in a clearing, despite the fact that all of the systems had begun to fail. You have no idea which planet you’ve landed on - or even which star system you were in when the malfunction occurred - but at least the air is breathable. If he’d gotten you back to any of the First Order bases, you’d likely be worse than dead; right now, you’ve still got at least a ghost of a chance of survival. 

You hear the humming of his lightsaber and the crunch of his boots on the leaves as he takes notice and begins to follow after you, his pace slow and measured. He’s taking his time, displaying a level of casual arrogance that makes your futile attempt to flee all the more frustrating. When he circles in front of you and crouches down, you stare stubbornly at his boots, certain that you’ll scream if you have to look at his smug face. 

“Look at me,” he says. His voice isn’t smug, surprisingly, and neither is his expression when you do finally glare up at him. “If you become more trouble than you’re worth, I’ll pick what I can out of your head right here and leave you for the scavengers. Understand?”

You try to spit on his boots. Your mouth is dry, and your attempt fails miserably, but at least you tried. His lip curls. “Is that your final answer, Rebel?”

“I’m not a Rebel,” you retort. “Like I give a damn who rules the galaxy—”

“You’re a spy,” he says. “You sold information to the Resistance. You can’t deny it.”

“Yeah? Something important enough to get the emperor sent after me? I should’ve charged more.”

His frown deepens. “I’m not an emperor, and your file was… interesting. Get up.”

He doesn’t offer any assistance, standing and looming impassively as you awkwardly struggle to your knees. “Let me go,” you tell him, offering your bound wrists. His expression doesn’t waver, so you bite your tongue and try to attempt some semblance of respect. “Please, Supreme Leader Ren.”

“No.”

As soon as you’re on your feet, he flicks off his saber and wanders off back towards the crash site, leaving you little choice but to trail behind him. He seems considerably less shaken than you’d expect, all things considered. He does have a dull sort of anger radiating from him, though, so maybe that’s his version of shock. 

“It was tampered with,” he says, more to himself than to you. He turns. “We can’t stay here.”

“What, why?”

You were hoping that he’d stay by the shuttle remains and wait for the First Order to come retrieve him, giving you time to slip off into the forest to escape. If they arrived after you’d managed to disappear, surely they wouldn’t waste the time and resources to track you down, would they? But the current leading power in the galaxy also _ personally _ tracked you down to capture you, so maybe you’re underestimating just how crazy Kylo Ren really is. 

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he digs around in the wreckage until he finds an emergency pack, which he tosses to the ground by your feet. “Pick it up,” he says, rummaging around for a pack of his own.

“I’ve got these,” you reply, holding up your cuffed wrists. “Can’t put it on.”

You stand there baking in the heat of the twin suns until he emerges again; his hair is sweaty and clinging to his face, and it gives you some small measure of satisfaction to see him so miserable. _ See? _ you tell yourself. _ He’s just a man. Not some kind of all-powerful magical wizard. It’s just propaganda. _

And really, you should’ve realized that the moment he took off his helmet in the crowded bar where he’d caught you. He’s prettier than any galactic tyrant has any right to be, with his dark, intense eyes and full mouth. He’s younger, too; you always assumed that the feared Kylo Ren would be some sort of twisted, ancient monstrosity. This is just a man. He may be a man with a bad temper and a noticeably-unstable laser sword, but he’s still just a man. 

Your heart nearly stops when he raises a hand and the shuttle door rips free of the rest of the wreckage, flung aside by some invisible force. Abandoning the pack, you stagger back to the edge of the clearing. He’s begun to pick apart the shuttle piece by piece, all without even touching the thing. 

“What are you _ doing?” _you cry. “If the tracker was still intact, you’re going to ruin it.”

He doesn’t stop until the ship is in shreds, and he’s drenched in sweat, practically panting. He swings his pack over his shoulder, and then he retrieves yours, too, carrying it back to the tree where you’ve retreated for cover. You have a flicker of hope that he’s going to unfasten your wrists, but he unhooks the straps on the pack instead, fastening it over your shoulders. It’s tremendously heavy, and you groan in protest.

“I can put you out of your misery,” he says. 

You squint up at him, unsure if he’s joking or not. His face is completely expressionless, so the odds are good that he will actually skewer you if you continue to complain. “After going to all this trouble?”

He looks almost puzzled, like he can’t even process your attempts to remain teasing when you might be on the verge of expiring. “Don’t become more trouble than you’re worth,” he tells you again, then he shoves you into the forest. 

There are no beaten paths to follow, and the brambles and underbrush scratch at your skin and catch on your clothes; you realize that you’ve gained the dubious honor of being Kylo Ren’s human shield. It seems pretty backwards, considering that he’s not only tall and broad, but also armed. What are you going to do if some unseen danger pops out from behind a tree to attack, start swinging your fists at it? You’d be dead in a heartbeat. 

The heat and humidity seem to intensify the deeper you go into the woods. You’re sweltering in your jacket, so you can only imagine that Supreme Leader Ren is about to die in his getup. It’s absurd that he doesn’t at least take off the gloves. “Where are we going?” you ask eventually, trying to pick a bramble out of your braid as he places his hand on your back to force you to speed up. “Is this an inhabited world? Are there—”

“I don’t know,” he interrupts. “Save your energy for walking. You’re slowing me down.”

You walk in silence for as long as you can bear, but the drowning of insects and the scuttling of yet-unseen creatures hidden in the greenery begins to unnerve you. “I miss civilization.”

Kylo Ren lets out a huff of irritation. “There are worse worlds,” he says. “You should be grateful.”

“Well, I’m not.”

He shoves you again. “You could also be grateful that I haven’t put a blaster bolt in your back. Traitors don’t get to complain.”

“You have to be loyal to someone to betray them,” you reply. You’re surprised that you’ve managed to muster so much bravado, and you attribute at least some of it to the shock and adrenaline from the crash. “It’s always worked out well for me in the past.”

You’re disappointed when he doesn’t bother to argue; he might not be the most pleasant conversational partner, but at least he’s a distraction from the suffocating atmosphere of the forest. It’s probably for the best; if he does come after you with that laser-sword, you imagine your confidence will wane pretty quickly, and you’ll probably end up begging for forgiveness on your knees. At least the stoic silence allows you to pretend that you aren’t worried about your impending torture and demise. 

The First Order has torture and execution down to an art, from everything you’ve heard. You never figured they’d bother to send law and order all the way out to Nar Shaddaa, but you’ve heard countless bounty hunters and pirates bemoaning the rising presence of the First Order across the galaxy - save for the ones who’ve managed to get in the First Order’s pockets, of course. Even burgeoning galactic empires need bodies to do their dirty work, it seems. 

There’s no reason to be more afraid of Kylo Ren than any other brute you’ve come across in your short, unfortunate life. You tell yourself that, at least, but there’s something a little extra terrifying about him; maybe it’s the way his sudden outbursts of rage emerge from behind a near-constant veneer of apathy, or the fact that he was crazy enough to leave his seat of operations to track down a random ‘spy’ on a smugglers’ moon in the Outer Rim, rather than sending one of his thousands of minions to do the job for him. Maybe it’s the fact that he carries around a spark-spitting saber-sword and supposedly possesses supernatural powers.

Though, to be fair, your belief in the Force has increased exponentially after seeing him shred the shuttle by only lifting a hand. That would also help to explain how he managed to knock you out so easily; you hadn’t felt a blow, or the sting of a sleeper dart. Maybe he just shut your brain down from the outside, which is far more terrifying than any of the other possibilities. 

You shriek when a large, brightly-colored beetle scuttles across a branch right in front of your face, falling back against Kylo Ren’s broad chest. He doesn’t catch you, and you end up toppling to the ground, twigs and brambles poking through your clothes. There’s an incredulous look in his eyes when he leans down to haul you back to your feet - but incredulous is better than murderous, all things considered. “It’s an insect,” he says, his voice clipped. 

“So? I’ve heard about Pelko bugs, and they—”

“Pelko bugs are only found on Korriban, and if we were on Korriban, they’d be the least of our problems.”

It’s another half-hour, by your estimate, when he tells you to stop and get some water. You eye your flask dubiously. “How long will this last?” you ask. 

“Two days.”

Dread bleeds through your veins. “Then what?”

“We find more,” he says. 

He looks absolutely miserable, and you fight back the urge to make a snarky comment about his heavy, all-black clothing. If he kills you, his water supply automatically doubles, and you probably shouldn’t tempt him, especially while he’s overheated and drenched in sweat. You swat at a gnat that’s hovering around your eyes, but you’re already struggling to manage anything with your wrists clamped together, so it’s mostly unsuccessful. “I’ll give you every credit to my name if you just unfasten these cuffs,” you tell him, trying to discreetly decide if you’ve got any chance of making a successful dive for the blaster strapped to his side. “Even if it’s just while we’re walking.”

Kylo Ren appears unmoved. “You don’t have any credits to your name. In fact, you’re in debt to the Black Sun.”

_Now or never,_ you decide. You cap your water flask and drop it to the ground as you spring towards him, shocked when you’re suddenly frozen in place, Kylo Ren’s gloved fingers merely inches from your face. Eyes wide, you struggle to break free, but your muscles are completely locked in place. _ Okay, Force, _ you think, _ I believe in you now. Sorry for the doubts. _

“You lack self-control.” He puts away his own flask, then slips the straps back over his shoulders, slowly circling you as you stand petrified. “Or maybe you’re just a fool. I expected a Resistance informant from Nar Shaddaa to have a stronger sense of self-preservation.”

Sensation returns to your limbs without warning, and you fall to your knees, though you quickly manage to regain your footing. “Sorry to disappoint, Supreme Leader.”

The trudge through the forest continues to be equal parts brutal and monotonous. You take to humming any song you can think of to pass the time. He doesn’t tell you to shut up, but you can tell he’s thinking it, practically boring holes into the back of your head with his glare. Serves him right, as far as you’re concerned. 

The twin suns blaze overhead anytime you pass through a clearing in the trees. It’s enough to make you prefer the thick forest, even though it’s practically impassable in some places, simply because it offers some shade. You’ve yet to come across any evidence of sentient life, and any optimism you had left quickly dissipates. “I can’t do this,” you announce. “We need to stop.”

He catches you before you’re able to sit down on a nearby root cluster, his hand wrapped around your upper arm. “We aren’t stopping. There’s no shelter here, and forests are never the same after nightfall.”

“For all we know, there’s no shelter anywhere. Is this even an inhabited planet? Are we just going to march around in the wilderness until—”

“We’ll go wherever I say,” he snaps. “Be quiet and keep walking.”

There’s a flash of true temper in his eyes that you haven’t seen since he destroyed the remains of his ship, so you bite your lip and smother your protests. Dead in two days is better than dead right now, right? And you’ve never been hit with a lightsaber before, but if the molten gashes in the durasteel hull of the ship were anything to go by, it wouldn’t be a pleasant experience.

The forest light eventually begins to dim, and the next time you have a glimpse of the sky, you see that the suns are beginning to dip. Before long, an unexpected chill hits the air, made all the worse by your damp layers of clothing, soaked by perspiration and humidity. The rapid change in temperature leaves your body reeling, and by the time the suns have almost completely set, you’re able to see your breath fogging in the air. You can’t even wrap your arms around yourself to keep yourself warm; you’re thankful that you still have your jacket on, at least.

“The day seemed long,” you remark, turning to squint back at him in the creeping darkness. “How long will the night be?”

“Just as long,” he says. He takes out a glowrod and powers it up, and you can see his breath, too. “We need to find cover. The temperature is going to keep dropping as long as the suns are down.”

You don’t even argue when he sets off at a brisk pace through the underbrush, practically dragging you by his side; you’re too afraid. You’ve never heard of a forest-world with such extreme climate changes. Frost begins to form on the damp ground, crunching beneath your boots. He draws up short by the sprawling, interlocked roots of a massive, ancient-looking tree, his chest heaving as he pauses to consider it. There are only a few openings that you can see in the roots, and none of them look big enough to accomodate you, let alone someone his size.

“Hold this,” he says, tucking the glowrod into your hands, and then his saber is swinging over his shoulder, hissing and popping as the heat meets the partially-frozen roots and slashes through them. The red glow from the blade lends a sort of manic gleam to his eyes, and you step back, clutching the glowrod to your chest, waiting until he’s satisfied with his handiwork. He crouches down and jabs his saber into the opening, and you brace yourself for some kind of terrifying beast to spring from the roots and eat you both. 

Nothing happens.

“You first,” he says. 

“I don’t—”

“I wasn’t asking.”

_ Maybe it’s warmer under the giant tree, _ you reason. _ Won’t it be worth it, if it is? _Still, you can’t shake the suspicion that it’s probably crawling with bugs that are also trying to escape the cold, and you brandish the glowrod as you awkwardly wriggle feet-first through the hole. There’s more of a drop than you’re expecting, and you swear as you tumble to the ground. It seems like falling on your face is becoming something of a habit, much to your chagrin. You hold up the glowrod; it’s too small of a space for you to stand, but it’s more open than you’d expected.

It’s also going to be extremely crowded when Kylo Ren decides to join you. You grimace at the thought, scooting back as far as you can as his boots drop into view. He practically has to fold himself in half to squeeze into the space with you, and his own expression is just as unenthused when he realizes how cramped the quarters are going to be. You hope he has enough sense to keep his saber off, because it wouldn’t surprise you if he started hacking away at the underside of the tree to clear more space for his Supreme Majesty, and you don’t want him bringing the whole thing down on both of your heads.

You’re shivering, but at least there’s no more wind. It’s nearly pitch-black outside, now, and you watch anxiously as he twists around so that he can shore up the hole with some of the fallen chunks of root. If something does come along with an appetite, you’re both easy pickings; there’s nowhere to run. He moves far too close for comfort, shrugging off his pack and depositing it in your lap. The glow from the light in your hands makes his eyes look sunken-in and tired, adding a surprising touch of humanity.

He pulls out a therma-blanket, and you have absolutely no idea how to react when he spreads it over both of you. Your throat feels tight. “Are you going to uncuff me?” you ask.

“No.” 

You barely breathe when he unfastens the straps of your own pack so that he can remove it without freeing your wrists; he was less intimidating, somehow, when you were out in the open, even though he towered over you. He pulls out a second blanket and layers it over the first, shifting even closer. _ Look at me, _ you think. _ A nobody, brushing thighs with the would-be leader of the galaxy. What a life. _

“What about food?”

“It can wait. We’ll need it more when we start moving again at sunrise.” He pries the glowrod from your fingers and jams it into the root lattice above your heads. “It’s going to get colder.”

“There’s no condenser in here? I’ve seen second-rate slavers with better survival packs than these—”

“I’ll be sure to lodge your complaint,” he responds dryly, leaning his head back and closing his eyes. “I’m sure my generals will be thrilled to hear that they don’t meet the standards of a Rebel barmaid from Nar Shaddaa.”

“I told you, I’m not with the Resistance.”

Kylo Ren’s eyes remain closed. “My father once used the smoldering corpse of a tauntaun to survive a blizzard on Hoth,” he says. “I’m starting to consider the merits of his approach.”

You gape at him. “You…”

“Monster?” he asks, his tone still completely conversational, like this is somehow an acceptable thing to discuss. “I’ve been called worse.”

Still glaring at him, you gather the blankets and pull them up to your chin. “No one lives on Hoth,” you say, unable to endure the silence, “so was he part of the Galactic Empire, then? Your father?”

His nostrils flare; it’s the only sign that he heard your question. 

“Well?” you press. “Either he was an Imperial officer or a trooper, or—”

“He was a smuggler,” he says. “A smuggler with ties to the Rebel Alliance.”

Even though he hasn’t budged an inch, there’s a roiling sort of tension rapidly filling the small space the two of you share, and you decide to make a tactical retreat. _ Still, _ you think, _ how shocking is it that Supreme Leader Kylo Ren came from a smuggler? Someone like the people I meet every single day in Nar Shaddaa? _

Maybe that’s why he seemed so disgusted when he’d found you there. Maybe he resents having ties to someone so lowly, so _ unrefined. _

_ Then why did he come at all? _

The wind picks up, rustling the leaves and brush outside, and you curl your knees towards your chest. His breathing is slow and steady, and you wonder what you’ll do if he freezes to death in his sleep, while you somehow survive. Like it or not, your odds are better with him around, at least until you figure out where you are and get the cuffs off of your wrists. 

“I don’t understand any of this,” you finally say aloud. “You shouldn’t be here; it doesn’t make sense for you to come after me. I see dozens of bounty hunters every day, and if you knew who I was, then why wouldn’t you pay them to bring me in?”

His eyes open, and you regret speaking, because the anger in them is more concentrated, now, more focused. “I’m trying to meditate, Rim rat.”

_ Oh, so we’re going for personal insults now, I guess. _You roll over onto your side, facing away from him. If you go to sleep, at least you won’t risk letting your mouth get you killed. Maybe you’ll miraculously get rescued before sunrise; you’re starting to think that you’d have an easier time escaping from a First Order base than from this unidentified planet that seems designed to be inhospitable to human lifeforms. The ground is cold and hard, little bits of rock and root poking into your side, and you shift around, trying to get comfortable.

You feel his hand on your hip, and you immediately still. “Stop,” he says. “You’re letting out the heat.”

He has a point. The heat trapped in the therma-blanket from your bodies is, unfortunately, the only thing you’ve got to keep you from freezing the night. Still, your apprehension grows as the hand on your hip remains. Is he going to take both of the blankets for himself? You have been, admittedly, a difficult prisoner—

You hear him sigh, an almost-defeated sort of sound, and the blankets shift slightly as he settles on his side behind you, his arm wrapping around your waist and dragging you close. You’re so tense that the slightest movement could probably shatter you into a million pieces, but he’s also amazingly _ warm. _ “What are you doing?”

“There is a fundamental lesson that I learned at a very young age: adapt, or die. I’m adapting.”

“Can you _ adapt _ on your other side, maybe?”

He stirs; you can’t tell if he almost laughed (unlikely), or if he’s trying to fight down the urge to strangle you (likely). “No,” he says. “We’re sharing body heat. I don’t want to spend the entire night hauling you back when you try to sneak away with the therma-blankets.”

You clear your throat, embarrassed by the sudden physical closeness. You’ve never been _ held _ before - you typically avoid any attempts made to hold you, in fact. Sometimes, blasters are involved. Yet here you are, wrapped up in the embrace of the - blessedly warm - Supreme Leader of the First Order. _ What is this, a trashy HoloNet serial? _

“I know you’ll be tempted,” he continues, “but don’t try anything. I’m a light sleeper.”

_ Figures, _you think. You can feel the handle of his blaster digging into your lower back, and you wonder how quickly he could get to his saber, wherever he has it stowed away. There’s no point in considering it - you aren’t about to go groping for it, and you probably wouldn’t be able to figure out how to turn it on quickly enough, even if you did manage to get your hands on it. 

“Keep fidgeting, and I’ll stun you.”

“Fine,” you hiss, “but this isn’t exactly comfortable.”

“It can’t be much worse than where you normally sleep.”

_ Spoiled brat. _

Despite your fear and your discomfort, your body is crying for sleep, and you eventually start to drift off. You can’t tell if Kylo Ren is sleeping or not, but his breathing is slow and steady, and the simple presence of another body is comforting; you’re used to hearing the rest of the barmaids snoring when you’re curled up in your hammock, and the thought of being buried under a tree in complete silence is a frightful one. At least this scenario is better than _ one _ possible alternative.

You try to roll over at one point during the night, forgetting where you are, and you nearly panic when you realize that you can’t move. It takes a moment, but you soon realize that his leg is now on top of yours, too. He’s heavy as a drunken Hutt, and you soon give up on any ideas of moving him._ At least it’s warm, _ you remind yourself. _ Focus on that. _

_ Don’t think about the fact that it’s going to be blisteringly hot again when the sun comes up, and then we’re going to have to go through this whole thing again when it sets. And we’ve got less than two days’ worth of water, and you’re trapped with a paranoid tyrant who’s chosen to run from the one spot on the entire planet a rescue party might show up to look for him. _

No, you certainly shouldn’t think about that.


	2. Chapter 2

It’s hot again. 

It’s so hot, in fact, that Kylo Ren has finally seen fit to take off his gloves and tuck them into his belt. His fingers are long and pale, and it’s almost strange to see more of his skin. You wonder how many people have seen him without his full uniform and helmet, and how many of those people are still alive. 

You’d been relieved to wake up in the morning, though your relief had lessened a bit when you’d realized that Kylo Ren’s malevolent presence was hovering over you. He’d tossed a cal-bar into your lap, already unwrapped, and waited for you to eat it, watching you with an unsettling sort of intensity that made choking the thing down even more difficult. 

The awkwardness had only increased when he’d shoved you out of your makeshift shelter, his hands on your waist. Given his mood, you’re surprised that he didn’t simply toss you out using his Force-powers, but maybe that’s something he has to let recharge, like some kind of old-fashioned battery. You’ve heard a million tall tales about the Jedi, but he doesn’t fit with any descriptions of the Jedi  _ you’ve _ ever heard.  _ More like the stories about Dathomirian Nightsisters.  _

He probably wouldn’t appreciate the comparison. 

You stop dead in your tracks when you spot a giant, sticky worm-looking thing wrapped around a few of the tree trunks just ahead. Its body is nearly translucent, and it’s got huge, protruding pincers at both ends. “What is that?” you ask, horrified. 

His hand rests on your shoulder, and the red of his saber blazes to life beside you, making you flinch. “I don’t know,” he says. He starts to move around you, and you clutch at his cowl. 

“Wait! What if it’s unkillable, or it shoots venom, or there are a dozen of them waiting to swarm? I don’t have a weapon.”

His lips press together in a severe line when he turns back to you, but he seems like he’s actually considering your words. “And?”

“Let’s go around it?”

“And then it follows us and attacks while we’re asleep.”

He turns back to the thing, closing in on it with purposeful, measured strides. If he’s afraid, he doesn’t show it; you, meanwhile, have chosen to tuck yourself behind the nearest clump of vines, ready to make a run for it if he suddenly gets himself killed. 

The blade whips through the air, and both ends of the pincer-worm dive towards Kylo Ren; he slices them both off with smooth spin of his saber, and then he starts hacking away at the rest of the thing with unnecessary savagery. “It’s dead,” you finally call out from behind your vines. “You can stop.”

When he whirls around to face you, his cheeks flushed, he almost seems like he didn’t remember that you were supposed to be there. You feel a flutter of fear race through you, but then he powers down his lightsaber, and you remind yourself that you need to breathe. Freezing isn’t going to do you any good.

You edge forward to join him, gagging at the noxious smell of the seared worm-chunks littering the forest floor. “Let’s go,” you say. “That thing reeks worse than a bantha’s ass.”

Kylo Ren tucks his saber away. “Do you even know what a bantha  _ is,  _ Rim rat?”

“Of course I do! Grakkus the Hutt keeps them.” You scowl and press onward, hopping through the carnage and trying to keep your boots at least moderately clean. “You act like Nar Shaddaa is isolated; we see all kinds, and from all over the galaxy. I’m not stupid.”

“Arguable.”

Seething, you grit your teeth and shove low-hanging branches and vines out of the way, secretly hoping that one of them will manage to smack Kylo Ren right in his arrogant face. It isn’t even like you’re going anywhere in particular; for all you can tell, he’s just picked a direction at random and plans to follow it until you’re both dead.  _ Kriffing idiot,  _ you think.  _ He’s going to kill us both.  _ You could be languishing in a well-lit, air-conditioned First Order prison cell right now, but  _ no— _

“Your mind is in turmoil,” he says. His voice is low, surprisingly conversational. “So much  _ anger, _ churning just beneath the surface.”

“Are you talking about me, or you?”

He pushes you forward.  _ Message received.  _

Hours pass - or at least, you think it’s been hours. Without knowing how long the days last here, it’s nearly impossible to guess. You begin to get a strange sense of something trickling nearby, and you start to trail after it, oblivious to Kylo Ren’s irritation. He seizes you by the collar of your jacket. “You’re going off-course,” he says. “We’re heading west.”

“I know, but there’s something… something flowing. You know? Like a sound. Do you hear it? It could be water.”

He circles in front of you, his expression contemplative. “Flowing?”

“Like when a tap’s left dripping.” You wipe your forehead with your sleeve, trying to get rid of some of the sweat and dirt. “These packs have filters at least, right?”

He seems to be studying you, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. “I can sense it, too,” he says, his head cocked slightly to the side. “If there’s water, though, anything else in the forest that needs water to live will gather there.”

“You could uncuff me and give me the blaster, if you’re worried that your laser-sword isn’t good enough.”

“Lightsaber,” he snaps. “Given your complete lack of coordination, you’re just as likely to shoot yourself in the foot as you are to be any real help. The cuffs stay on.”

“I’ve shot a blaster before.”

“I don’t care.” He releases your collar. “Get moving.”

_ You’re the one who stopped me in the first place. _

The sensation of tiny things creeping around under the cover of the leaves seems to increase as you go along, and you blame him for putting the idea in your head that there will be more creatures lurking around the water source. It’s  _ oppressive.  _ You’d take a noisy, crowded day slinging drinks at the Burning Deck over this stupid forest any day of the week, no doubt about it. At least you know who to watch out for at the Burning Deck. You peer over your shoulder at your captor.  _ You thought you knew who to watch out for,  _ you think.  _ Lot of good that did you. _

“When have you ever held a blaster?” he asks you. There’s a leaf stuck in his hair, but somehow, it doesn’t make him any less imposing. 

“I keep one under the bar. Did you  _ see _ the average patron of our fine establishment? They don’t always like paying their tabs, or taking their business disputes outside.”

“You didn’t use it on me.”

You huff. “I didn’t know you were coming after  _ me, _ pretty-boy. With the nice clothes and shiny boots, I figured you were some runaway rich kid trying to act like a tough guy. They always come to the Corellian sector to gamble and flash their money, until they lose it all.”

He doesn’t respond. You keep your eyes forward, but you can picture the look that’s probably on his face.  _ Remember how you promised yourself that you wouldn’t let your mouth get you killed?  _ you ask yourself. _ Remember that? _

The ground beneath you suddenly  _ isn’t,  _ and you yelp in surprise as Kylo Ren catches you around the waist and stumbles back from the gaping crack that’s now visible through the leaf cover, knocking you both off your feet in the process. You cower beneath him as spindly, long insectoid legs scrabble out of the crack, followed by a head bearing massive, slimy pincers. 

“Oh, Kriff,” you cry, clinging to his cowl. “That must be the mother worm - you killed its baby, and now it’s going to  _ eat  _ us—”

“Shut up,” he hisses, reaching back to keep you tucked behind him as the pincer-bug emerges from its nest, letting out a chattering roar. He’s got his lightsaber out by the time its body is fully visible - the thing has to be twice as long as he is, and unlike its younger counterpart, it’s covered with a dark, plate-like armor. 

It roars again, and Kylo Ren rolls to his feet, his saber extended. You can’t imagine how he’ll manage to get close enough to stab it without getting caught either in its pincers or its legs, which are stomping wildly about in the underbrush, blindly trying to skewer any other hidden trespassers. Apparently, he can’t, either, because he holds out a hand, and when he clenches his fingers into a fist, the trees above the pincer-worm splinter and crash to the ground, crushing it. It writhes in its death-throes as you watch in horrified silence, and then it goes still, its slimy pincers still dripping. 

A neat twirl of his saber slices them off; it seems unnecessary, but you figure he’s just being cautious. He turns to look down at you, his expression unreadable. You hold up your arms. “Help me up?” you ask meekly, keeping your eyes averted when he reaches down and pulls you onto your feet. The lightsaber still crackles and spits in his other hand, and you keep a wary eye on it. 

“You’re creeping closer and closer to being more trouble than you’re worth,” he says. 

“If I’m that much trouble, then why didn’t you let me fall and get eaten?”

The blade is suddenly hovering just beside your neck; you’re afraid to swallow, or even to blink. You can feel the heat of it against your skin, and you tremble, your eyes fixed on the hand that holds its hilt. He holds it there for a moment or two, and then he removes it, switching the saber off and storing it back in his belt. “It’s going to get cold tonight.”

_ Right. Body heat.  _

It’s hard to even consider how cold it will be when the suns go down, given how hot it is now. You’re shaken from the pincer-bug attack and from having your head nearly whacked off by the Supreme Leader, and your head is starting to pound from hunger and stress and dehydration. You have to backtrack the way you’d come to circumvent the fallen trees and the monster carcass, and with every step you take, you’re terrified that the ground will disappear beneath your feet again. Kylo Ren seems to be growing more and more impatient with your short, hesitant footsteps by the minute. 

“If we don’t get water collected and filtered before sundown, it’s going to be frozen.”

“It’s not my fault we got attacked by that thing. I’m going as fast as I can.”

More and more, you’re getting a niggling suspicion that Kylo Ren simply doesn’t have much experience with small talk. There’s a certain stiffness about him, a tension that seems to lend itself more to interrogation than to any semblance of friendly chatter. He asks, you respond, and that’s it. The closest he gets to anything bordering normal interaction is when his temper bubbles up and he starts insulting you, and you’d rather leave him to glower in silence.

When the creek finally appears, hidden away behind a small outcropping of fallen trees and rocks, you’re nearly ready to weep with relief. He holds you back at the water’s edge, jamming a thin, clear tube into the wet dirt of the creekbed. “Well?” you ask, impatient. “Is it going to kill us?”

The tube slowly fills with water, then glows green. “It could be better, but it’s safe enough to swim. Finish what you have in your flask, and we’ll leave them to filter while we’re in the water.”

“In the water?”

He’s already draining the water in his flask, and once he’s done, he refills it from the creek and drops the little glass tube inside. You fumble with your pack until you manage to get your water bottle in your hands. It takes another minute of struggling to get the cap off, and by the time you do, Kylo Ren has already begun to strip. His cowl drops onto the ground first, and then he begins to unfasten his tunic.

_ Maybe this is my chance, _ you think. “Hey, Supreme Leader, how about taking these cuffs off now?”

His back stiffens, and when he turns to you, dropping his shirt on the ground, you wince; his entire ribcage is covered with deep purple bruising, extending all the way up to his right shoulder. “Why would I do that?”

“I can’t take my clothes off, for one thing, and I’ll also probably drown. Please,” you add when he remains impassive. “Please, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren? I won’t run.”

If he insists on refusing, you might just throw yourself into the creek fully-clothed; you’re absolutely filthy, and you can feel the sweat running down your back. He surprises you, though, flicking his fingers. The cuffs whir and fall to the ground, and you rub your chafed wrists, shocked that he’d given in so easily. 

“Consider this a temporary parole. If you do anything stupid, it won’t happen again.”

“I won’t.”

Your jacket is filthy, and you momentarily consider trying to wash it in the creek. “Hey, Supreme Leader,” you ask, “should we wash our clothes, do you think?”

He squints up at the suns, his hands on his belt. “We can’t. They won’t dry before sundown.”

Out of the corner of your eye, you watch as he carefully places his belt on top of his clothes, along with his blaster and saber. It’s like he’s purposefully trying to tempt you into doing something impulsive. You avert your eyes when he kicks off his boots and begins to peel off his pants. In the midst of all of the excitement of getting your cuffs off, you hadn’t really thought the whole ‘naked-swimming’ thing through. 

You sneak another peek to see if he’s safely in the water. This entire thing has just gotten exponentially more unfortunate. Through, truth be told, the water looks icy, and you’re hot enough that your dignity is more than ready to throw in the towel. Kylo Ren’s head ducks under the water, and you sit down at the edge of the creek and pull off your own boots as you wait for him to resurface. He’s underwater for a long time.

When he pops back up, his dark hair is plastered to his cheeks. “Get in the water,” he says. “I know you’re eyeing my blaster. It won’t work.”

You unbutton your shirt, grateful that you’ve got a thin undershirt beneath. “I’m coming. I just don’t see why we have to get naked together.”

“Stay filthy then, Rebel. See if I care.”

“I’m not a rebel.”

You shed your pants, next; it’s the most you can bring yourself to do with Kylo Ren stoically watching you, and you venture into the creek still in your underwear. The water deepens quickly, the cold a sharp contrast to your overheated skin. “Do we know nothing’s waiting to eat us in here, too?”

“It’s best to assume that everything is trying to kill you, always.” He pushes his hair from his face, and you’re slightly amused to notice that he’s got big ears. It adds even more youthfulness to his appearance, not that it reaches his eyes. Kylo Ren strikes your as the type of man who was born with that ancient, haunted sort of look in his eyes. “I doubt you’ve survived this long on the Smuggler’s Moon by trusting your environment.”

“No, but at least I know what to expect there. Except for  _ you _ showing up, I mean. I don’t have to worry about giant bug-monsters, though.”

“I’d take a bug over a Hutt any day, personally.”

You think he might be making a joke. His tone makes it difficult to tell. “Have a bad experience with a Hutt, Supreme Leader?”

The title seems to irritate him. “Not personally, no.”

When you get farther out into the creek, the height difference between the two of you becomes even more obvious. He’s out deeper than you’d dare to go, so you settle for standing where the water’s just up to your chest, splashing it onto your face and shoulders. 

“You can’t swim, can you?” he asks suddenly. 

“No,” you reply, instantly defensive. “Why?”

“You’re afraid of the deeper water.” He’s studying you, and you look away; he’s probably doing some kind of Force mind-trick, if those really do exist. “You try to hide your shortcomings.”

“I don’t see how it’s a  _ shortcoming. _ It’s not like we had anywhere to swim, where I live. Any free water large enough to get in is probably so caustic it’d burn human skin off. Not that my life is any of your business, Supreme Leader Ren.”

“Everything about you became my business when you sold intel about my Knights to the Resistance, girl. If anonymity was so important to you, you should’ve considered the repercussions of treason against the First Order. It’s a miracle that you aren’t dead. Some of my officers are more heavy-handed.”

“More than you? I heard what happened to the Hosnian system. The whole system, blown to oblivion. That was the First Order, wasn’t it? Just like what the Empire did to Alderaan.”

“Change brings progress,” he says, but his lip curls, like he’s biting back his temper. “I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

You sink lower into the water. “I never really cared for politics, anyway.” After a few minutes, you ask, “What is your empire doing without you around?”

“It isn’t an empire,” Kylo Ren snaps. “Not yet.”

“Well, whatever it is, what are they doing with their Supreme Leader gone missing?”

“Knowing my generals, they’re most likely burning Nar Shaddaa to the ground.” Your horror doesn’t seem to affect him in the slightest. “They’ll probably assume that a Resistance member trailed me from Hutt Space and shot me down, since we went offline so suddenly.”

“But… but what if it was one of them?”

He scoffs. “The only general in my Order with the nerve to assassinate me wouldn’t risk this mess. It isn’t certain enough, and I’m very difficult to kill.”

_ I can believe that,  _ you think. The purple-black bruising is visible on his shoulder, though the rest of it is hidden beneath the water. He must’ve gotten injured when the ship crashed, but you don’t remember him showing any signs of it. There are thin, healed scars on nearly every patch of skin you’ve seen exposed, including one across his face that, when it was new, was probably horrific. No, Kylo Ren doesn’t seem like an easy man to kill. 

It’s a good thing, for now. It will be significantly  _ less _ of a good thing when he gets back to his base and decides it’s time to execute you for treason. He probably won’t even have the decency to do it himself. He’ll probably get what he wants from you, then hand you off to some minion to be disposed of, like garbage. For some reason, the thought prickles at you. 

_ What does he want? _

That’s the eternal question, isn’t it? He said that he’s after what’s in your head, but it’s his information you leaked, and the fact that he knows you’re the one who sold it to the Resistance leaves you wondering what more he could possibly need to know. Maybe he’s mistakenly assuming that you’ve got actual connections with them, that you’ll be able to tell him something useful. If that’s the case, he’s going to be awfully disappointed. 

He comes close to you when he heads for the shore, and you wrap your arms around your chest. Pausing, he looks down at you, water droplets still trailing down his cheeks. “You should get out, too,” he says. “I’m not coming back in if you do start to drown.”

“It would probably be better than going back to the First Order with you.”

His jaw tightens. “Suit yourself.”

You don’t turn around until you hear the rustle of his clothes behind you, the clinking of his blaster against the saber handle strapped to his belt. He’s waiting for you, the cuffs dangling from his fingers. “You aren’t really going to put me back in those, are you?”

“Of course I am.” When you stay in the creek and show no signs of leaving, he crouches down by the water’s edge. “Don’t make me drag you out.”

“I thought you said you weren’t going to come back in.”

“To save you,” he clarifies. “This is different. If I have to do that, you should know that I’m going to cuff your hands behind your back this time. Maybe they’ll make you appreciate how lucky you’ve been so far.”

Biting back vitriol, you stomp out onto the creekbed, your arms wrapped around your chest. “Can I at least get dressed first?” You must’ve said it with just a little too much snark, because he darts forward and grabs your wrist, snapping one of the cuffs on. “Wait—”

“It’s time for a lesson,” he says, securing the other cuff with a decisive click. He scoops up the rest of your clothes and shoves them into your pack, then places your pack in your arms. “The lesson is that you shouldn’t talk back to me.” 

You stand there dripping wet and in disbelief as he straps on his own pack, and then he simply turns and heads off into the forest. “You might want to put your boots on,” he calls back over his shoulder. 

Cursing, you shove your feet in your boots as quickly as you’re able and hurry after him, your pack awkwardly clutched against your chest. You’re just going to get dirty and sweaty again, your wet underclothes clinging to you, unable to dry due to the humidity. “You can’t do this!” you call after him. 

He ignores you. 

The suns begin their descent, and the temperature rapidly begins to drop. You’re too furious to beg him for the privilege of clothing - for now - so you stalk along beside him in stubborn silence. At least he’s taking the lead, for now, so if there are any more pits, he’ll be the one to fall into them.  _ It’ll serve him right, too.  _

“You’re going to let yourself freeze out of spite?” he says suddenly. “Out of pride?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“You could always submit, unless you think that you’ll be able to overpower me. You won’t, but you could try. I expected you to fight. I’m disappointed.”

You catch up to him, practically running to match his long strides. “You have two weapons and you’re  _ huge,” _ you cry. “And you said you’d kill me! You still expect me to fight you?”

He stops and looks at you, and you remember that you’re half-naked and even more vulnerable than usual. “You want to,” he says. “I can feel it.”

“I don’t feel like you need your  _ Force _ to guess why I’d want to kick you into the nearest comet,  _ Supreme Leader—” _

Gasping, you forget your tirade as your mind suddenly feels  _ wrong,  _ like there’s something blasting through all of your memories, shoving your own consciousness aside. You’d likely fall to your knees, but you can’t move, and so you stand there in front of him, your eyes locked with his. Whether Kylo Ren is searching for anything in particular or simply showing you what he’s capable of, you aren’t certain, but you’re trembling and nautilus when he withdraws from your mind as abruptly as he’d entered it. 

His lip quirks. “I won’t hand you over to anyone else to execute, if you’re really so bothered by it. I’ll make sure to keep you for myself.”

“Thanks,” you hiss, clutching your pounding head. It feels like he’s split your skull in half, and you’re cold and miserable. “That’s really considerate.”

“It’s near the forefront of your mind.” He crouches down beside you, strangely casual. “You’re so afraid of feeling worthless, of being used and tossed aside. Dying as just another nameless, faceless prisoner of the First Order.”

There’s bile in your throat. “And?”

“It’s interesting, considering the fact that you’ve never done anything remarkable in your entire life. No real family left, no real friends.” He stands. “The Resistance seems to appeal to the lonely and pathetic.”

“For the last time, I’m not in the Resistance. I’m not lonely, either.”

“Deny it. It doesn’t change the truth.”

“I liked you better when you weren’t talking.”

He yanks you to your feet and unfastens your cuffs, glowering at you as you scramble to get back into your pants. Maybe the near-death experiences are starting to numb you, but you can’t hide your ire, even though you know you probably should. It isn’t like Kylo Ren is bothering to be polite, either.  _ Except,  _ that little voice in your head reminds you,  _ Kylo Ren is the one with the lightsaber and the blaster and the mystical powers… not to mention the entire First Order’s at his disposal, if we ever make it back to civilization. Don’t forget about that. _

“Let’s go,” he says impatiently, fastening the cuffs back as soon as you’ve managed to zip up your jacket. “I don’t want to sleep under a tree tonight.”

Unfortunately, trees seem to be the status quo for accommodations on whatever world this is, and by the time the cold forces him to give up his search for anything better, the suns have almost completely set. The pocket the two of you huddle inside is even smaller than before, and draftier; you don’t even bother to complain when he wraps both of you up in the therma-blankets. You don’t have to like him to use him for warmth, after all. You can hate him, can absolutely  _ loathe _ him, and it doesn’t make his body heat any less valuable. 

Kylo Ren noticeably tenses when you curl up against him.  _ Figures, _ you think. Supreme Leader  _ Ren can’t handle anyone else taking initiative.  _ “You have to have a plan,” you say. You can feel the rise and fall of his chest; his breath is shallow, and you wonder if his chest injuries are more than just skin-deep. “Please tell me there’s an actual plan, and that we aren’t going to do this forever.”

He meets your eyes. It makes you uncomfortable when he does that, like he’s searching for something that you don’t completely understand. “I have a tracker,” he finally says. “Short-range.”

“You have a tracker—”

“Short-range,” he repeats. “I can’t activate it until I’m sure that a rescue team is within range; it’s more likely that whoever tried to kill me is nearby, and they could pick up the trace.”

“We’re running to buy time.” Your mind conjures up the image of the worst, most brutal bounty hunters you’ve ever come across in Nar Shaddaa, all racing through the forest on Kylo Ren’s heels. How much is the most dangerous man in the galaxy worth? Probably a lot.

He nods. “I don’t know when my signal was lost, or how much intelligence my officers have about my final trajectory. It could take days for them to reach this world, or longer.”

“And what if someone else finds us first?”

“I kill them and take their ship,” he says. He pulls up his hood and closes his eyes, signalling an end to the conversation.

You try to sleep for hours, but your can’t help but fixate on the fact that he must be less certain of his ability to kill his would-be assassins than he’d like for you to believe; if he was sure of it, he wouldn’t be tearing off through the woods with you at a breakneck pace. He twitches and grunts in his sleep, and you prop yourself up on one elbow, studying him in the dim light from the glowrod. You don’t think that you’ve seen him eat, either, now that you think about it. 

If there  _ is _ something wrong with him, you won’t be much help. There isn’t much in the way of medical care back in Nar Shaddaa, and you’ve only been injured badly enough to spring for the expense of a bacta patch once in your entire life. Hesitantly, you reach out and brush your fingers against the bare skin of his wrist, wondering if you’d be able to tell if he has a fever. The cuffs clank, and you retreat immediately, tucking your head under the blankets in case he suddenly decides to open his eyes.

_ Don’t die yet, Kylo Ren,  _ you think.  _ Not until you get me off of this planet. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> <3 Thank you all so much for your interest in this story!


	3. Chapter 3

Kylo Ren yanks a huge, dagger-sized thorn out of his thigh and drops it on the ground, hissing in pain. You cower against a nearby tree trunk, afraid that one of the semi-sentient vines that he just finished hacking to pieces will suddenly spring back to life. 

It hasn’t been a good morning. 

“Is that… Are you going to be okay?” you ask hesitantly, edging closer to him. He’s got his hand pressed over it, but you can see the bloodstain spreading across the fabric of his pants. 

“Be quiet,” he snaps, his face contorted. His eyes close, and you stand beside him, feeling utterly useless as you watch him clutch his leg and breathe. 

_ Deep breathing isn’t going to fix that, _ you think, but once again, Kylo Ren manages to surprise you. He straightens after a few minutes, then staggers off towards his discarded backpack, setting down heavily on tree stump. You trail after him, uncertain; what are you supposed to _ do _ in this situation? Help him? Try to take advantage of the fact that he’s injured? 

He digs around in his pack and pulls out a thin foil packet, ripping it open with his teeth. A small bacta patch drops out into his lap, and he widens the rip in the fabric and tucks it inside, grunting when it makes contact with the wound. You aren’t particularly impressed with his technique, and you hope that you’re never relying on him to heal _ you. _He doesn’t seem particularly gentle. 

“You have bacta?”

Ignoring you, he wraps a bandage around his leg, then stands and seems to test his weight. 

“Do you think it’s poisonous?”

He glares at you.

“If you take off the cuffs,” you offer, “then I could help.”

“I don’t need your help. Let’s go.”

_ Message received, _ you think, gritting your teeth as he steers you back along the invisible path he’s following through the forest. His hand is heavy on your shoulder. _ Don’t fall over, Kylo Ren, because I’m not going to catch you. _

“I hate this planet,” you announce to no one in particular, swatting away one of the little stinging gnats that seem to be attracted to your sweat. 

“Good,” he says. “Stay alive out of pure spite.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” 

His grip on your shoulder tightens. “More or less.”

“That doesn’t sound sustainable.”

No answer. 

“You should show me how to use your lightsaber,” you say, “in case you’ve completely fallen apart by the time someone finds us. Maybe the Resistance will be first. I don’t exactly want to get killed by them, either.”

“You keep claiming that I can trust you, forgetting the fact that I can _ feel _ your intent.”

“My _ intent _ is to keep my head on my shoulders,” you retort. “I think that’s a pretty reasonable intent.”

“Of course it is,” Kylo Ren replies, “and it’s also reasonable that I’m not going to teach you anything that would give you the confidence to try to murder and abandon me.”

“If you’re so sure that I wouldn’t be able to _ succeed, _ then why does it even matter?”

“Because I’d have to kill you if you tried,” he says, “and I’ve already wasted too much effort keeping you alive.”

_ “Kiax, _you really are just making it up as you go, aren’t you?” you cry. “What kind of Supreme Leader—”

Your voice disappears, and you turn to him in shock, your eyes wide. There’s something almost like a smile on his face. “I have no idea why I didn’t think of that sooner,” he says, “but thank you, Rim rat, for inspiring me to _ lead.” _

_ ‘Call me that one more time, you bastard,’ _you mouth furiously, but the Supreme Asshole just smirks and shoves you back into motion. 

Since he can’t actually hear you, you take the opportunity to go on a full-blown tirade; you tell him how stupid this whole jungle trek is, how you hope that he ends up on the wrong end of a blaster bolt, how he looks like something that’s been chewed up and spit out by a Seswennan wildcat. He doesn’t seem to mind your silent shrieking. In fact, if anything, Kylo Ren seems smug. It only serves to make your temper worse. 

At least he isn’t leaning on your shoulder any more, though you have to admit, it’s nice when he’s close enough that you don’t have to worry about getting attacked and dragged off onto the forest before he can respond. If he’d been a few steps farther away when the thorn-vines appeared…

_ But he wasn’t too far away, _ you tell yourself. _ And he’s fast, and he’s strong, and even though he’s completely crazy, he’s done an okay job of keeping you from being eaten, so far. _That’s true. You have to give credit where it’s due. Of course, you also think he’s kind of stupid for wasting the energy to keep you alive - you’re almost certainly slowing him down - but you can’t really complain about that. 

He walks ahead of you, his shoulders hunched. He reaches down to grip his thigh every so often, and you wonder if it’s still bleeding. It had seemed like a deep puncture, more than a simple bacta patch could possibly handle. In the humidity, the ends of his hair are almost beginning to curl; he’s a far sight from the pristine, masked Supreme Leader you’d seen once or twice on the HoloNet. 

Kylo Ren is just a human. Just like you. 

The heat today seems worse. Maybe it’s because you’re exhausted and hungry, or maybe you’re actually travelling into a more stifling part of the forest. If he ever unfreezes your voice, you’re going to try to persuade him to find somewhere to take shelter earlier today. It’s even worth being cooped up with _ him, _ if you can get some rest. 

He staggers backwards suddenly, and you bump into him, silently squeaking in surprise. When he turns towards you, his cheeks are red. You hope it’s only from the heat. “There’s something watching us,” he says. You stiffen when he places his hands on your shoulders, but it seems like he’s just using you to prop himself up. 

You run two fingers along your throat, just in case he’s forgotten that he’s used some kind of Force-magic on you, and it’s a good thing that you do, because there’s a slightly startled look in his eyes. _ Great, _ you think. _ Bet he was gonna keel over dead and leave me like this forever. _

“Can you feel it?” he asks, tracing his fingers along your neck - a suspiciously unnecessary move, in your opinion, seeing as how he didn’t have to touch you to curse you in the first place. 

There’s a lump in your throat, and you swallow, wishing you hadn’t strained to scream at him quite so much while you were silenced. “There’s always things watching us here. Makes my skin crawl.”

Kylo Ren nods. 

You don’t know how to feel about the fact that he’s acting progressively weirder the longer you’re out in the wilderness with him. “Should we… do something? Hide, or get ready to fight?”

He shakes his head. “I just wanted to know if you knew.”

“Eyes in the back of my head,” you tell him. “That’s what Grahrk at the Star Cluster Casino always said. 

“And who is Grahrk at the Star Cluster Casino?” he asks. 

You don’t know why he asks. You don’t know why you feel compelled to answer, either. “Dice player. Best one I’ve ever seen.”

“I _ knew _ it,” he begins. 

“I don’t gamble!” you interrupt. “I’ve seen too many people missing fingers for unpaid debts. It’s not tempting. But Grahrk said I was a good-luck charm, and that he always rolled the best rounds when I was around.”

“And?”

_ How does he do that? How does he know when I’m leaving things out? _ “And he was _ nice _ to me, so I’d keep an eye out if anyone seemed like they were coming for him. He… well, he didn’t get along with the Hutts, or with the Black Sun. Nar Shaddaa isn’t the best place to be if you don’t get along with the Hutts or the Black Sun, Supreme Leader.”

His expression is thoughtful. “Would you describe yourself as lucky?” 

“Are you kidding?” You shove your manacled wrists in front of his face. “Would _ you _ describe this as ‘lucky?’”

Releasing your shoulders, he steps back, his lip curling in disdain. “Nevermind,” he says. “Let’s go.”

He waits to follow behind you, this time, and you’re a very reluctant leader; with every step, you imagine some monster popping up out of the ground to devour you. You’re halfway expecting to turn around and see Kylo Ren sprawled face-first in the leaves, too, considering how rough he looks. You wonder if you look as beat-up as him, or if he’s just taken the worst of it. The early morning thorn through the leg couldn’t have helped, either. 

You’re so busy trying to sneak peeks at him over your shoulder that you miss a gnarled root in front of you, tripping and crashing onto your hands and knees. Leaves and dirt stick to your sweaty skin, and your palms sting. You feel him come to a halt right behind you. “Get up,” he says. 

“I’m working on it,” you snap, trying to regain your footing without having the full freedom to move your arms. “Not exactly a prince, are you?”

He lets out a huff of a laugh. “Something tells me you’ve never met a prince. I have a feeling their manners would disappoint you.”

“I’ve met more than one bounty hunter who claimed to be a deposed prince, actually, and all of them were more charming than you, Supreme Leader.”

If he’d ordered you to call him ‘Supreme Leader,’ you probably would’ve resisted. The fact that it actually seems to annoy him instead is an unexpected joy. Maybe it’s your tone. Tuuma at the Burning Deck has smacked you around for your tone more than once. _ ‘Disrespectful human waste.’ _Actually, Tuuma has probably called you that more than he’s called you your own name. 

At least Kylo Ren doesn’t call you human waste. No, instead you’ve got the delightful moniker ‘Rim rat,’ which, all things considered, could probably be a lot worse. Everyone and their mother who hails from the Outer Rim has probably been called that by a Core Worlder at least once or twice in their lives. 

You manage to regain your footing with no help at all from him, and you notice when you stand that he seems a little shorter than before. He’s slightly hunched over, his shoulders slumped. _ Terrible posture for a galactic leader, _you think. But then, he’s probably down a good bit of blood, and you’ve still yet to see him eat anything. “Hey,” you venture hesitantly, “if you need to stop—”

“I don’t.”

“Okay, well if you _ want _ to stop, I can… I can _ try _ to do something about that.” You point at his obviously-bleeding thigh. “You’re just wearing yourself out for no good reason, and we aren’t even going anywhere in particular. If anyone’s that close behind us, they’ll catch us either way.”

He wipes sweat from his forehead, his chest heaving. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Kinda depends on who it is that’s catching us, doesn’t it?”

He’s considering it; you can see the conflict in his eyes. You both know that there’s no reason for him to refuse, other than pure stubbornness and a need to be the only one calling the shots. “We find water first,” he says. “Start searching.”

“What do you mean?”

“You heard the creek,” he says, his voice simmering with frustration. “That’s what you said before. Do it again.”

“I can’t just choose to hear things. That’s ridiculous.”

“You can, and if you want to stop and find shelter, then you will.”

He makes you want to scream. Instead, you close your eyes and count to ten, trying not to say anything that’ll get you in too much trouble. “What if the closest one is the one we’ve already been to?”

“We aren’t going back.”

_ We should’ve just stayed there in the first place, _ you seethe. _ It’s not like it was fancy or anything, but there was water and somewhere to hide from crazy bug-monsters. _

You try to listen for the flow of water as you shove your way through the underbrush. “Yeah, I don’t hear anything.”

“Maybe if you’re quiet for five minutes and focus, you will.”

Minutes tick by, and nothing. You briefly entertain notions of making a run for it, hoping that he’ll be too tired to follow. He’s impossibly stubborn, though. He’d probably come after you like a madman, until the both of you dropped dead of sheer exhaustion or got eaten by some horrible jungle beast. _ He’s probably looking forward to another chance to chop something into bits anyway, _ you think. _ Better not make it me. _

You spy some pretty yellow flowers growing on a vine not far away, and you wander towards them, your hand outstretched. They seem almost too delicate for their surroundings, and even from a distance, they smell incredibly sweet.

Kylo Ren slaps your hand away, an incredulous look on his face. “Don’t touch that,” he says. “Do you have no survival instincts _ at all?” _

“They’re pretty,” you reply stubbornly, a little chagrined when you realize that he’s right; nothing on this planet has given you any reason to trust it. “And they smell good, which is a nice break from the smell of sweat and worm-monster guts that’s burned into my nose.”

“Kriff, you’re stupid. They could be toxic. The pollen—”

“I _ get _ it, Supreme Leader. I’m not going to touch anything.”

“Keep walking.”

You huff. “Fine.”

It’s a long time before you stop again, or before you waste any breath speaking to Kylo Ren. Your lips are becoming dry and chapped, while your skin is completely sweat-slicked. The forest goes on endlessly, trees and twisted vines and the unsettling sensation of being surrounded by living things that really don’t want you there. There’s an itch on your lower back that you’ve been dying to scratch, and the fact that your hands aren’t free is starting to drive you a little insane.

_ Please, _ you beg yourself, _ just focus. Find some water and convince this asshole to make camp for the evening. Please. _You decide to just follow your feet, hoping that maybe luck will be on your side, and before long, you hear the trickle of water. You nearly cry in relief. “Do you hear that? There’s more water nearby… or we’ve gone in a circle.”

“We haven’t gone in a circle,” he says, and when you start to rush off in the direction of the water, he grabs your arm. “Wait. You don’t know what’s between us and where we’re going.”

“Good point. You want to take the lead, then, Ren?”

He nods, but he looks dazed enough that you’re a little worried that him ‘taking the lead’ might not do that much good. _ Pay attention to how he turns the saber on, next time he whips it out, _ you think. _ You might need to use it before long. _

Instead of a tiny creek, the two of you discover a river, narrow, but with water that’s so dark you can’t tell how deep it is. It seems slow-moving, but you’re still a little disappointed; you don’t want him taunting you about not being able to swim. “Hey, look at that,” you say. “I did it.”

“You did.”

Coming from Kylo Ren, it’s practically a compliment. 

“I never thought I’d be any good at things like this. I’ve never even seen a tree in the wild, on Nar Shaddaa, and this place… This place is so different.”

His hand is still on your arm. “You’re afraid.”

_ Of course I’m afraid, Kylo Ren, _ you think. _ Doesn’t it go without saying? I’m terrified. If the jungle doesn’t kill me, you and your First Order probably will. You should be afraid, too. _

He takes off your manacles and pushes you ahead of him down the steep incline leading down to the riverbank. There are even broader trees here, and it gives you hope that maybe you’ll have a little room to spread out whenever you bed down for the night. The first thing you do is pull your jacket off and start scratching every itch and bug-bite, groaning in bliss. Kylo Ren looks vaguely disgusted.

“Don’t scratch them,” he says. “You’ll get an infection.”

“Yeah? Speaking of, how’s that gash in your leg doing?” 

The look he gives you is hateful, and you remind yourself - yet again - that you shouldn’t poke at him. Whatever holds him together seems always on the edge of fraying. “It’s fine.” 

You try to watch him subtly as he begins to peel off his clothes, assessing the damage. It really isn’t fair that he isn’t being upfront with you, now that you’re in this mess together. The bruising on his torso is even darker, his pale skin making the contrast particularly striking. When he hunches over to remove his boots, you think that he looks almost pitiable, but that notion vanishes the moment he stands up again. Even bruised and battered, Kylo Ren looks like he could snap you in half. 

“What do you miss?” you ask him impulsively. 

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean, you’re the Supreme Leader. I imagine you’re used to having tons of people bringing you what you want, anything you can imagine. So, what do you miss?”

His lip twitches. “What’s the point of the question?”

“I’m just curious. Everything I have is junk, and I still miss it. I wondered what it was like going from a life of luxury to _ this.” _

The question seems to bother him, though you can’t imagine why. “Get in,” he says. “You’re learning to swim.”

“What? No.”

“You’re at least going to learn how to _ float,” _ he says impatiently, taking a menacing step or two in your direction. “You can’t do anything. You’re worthless.” He seems to reconsider his approach, then, his hands balling into fists by his side. The temper in his tone is a bit more restrained when he speaks again. “You’re afraid. Let it motivate you.”

“I don’t—”

He points at the water. “The river is a threat. It can kill you, can’t it? Isn’t that what you’re afraid of? Face it.”

“I’d really rather not.” Swimming lessons with him - while you’re both in your underwear - sound horrible. Maybe worse than actually drowning. _ Now you’re just being dramatic, _you tell yourself, but you wrap your arms around your chest when he approaches anyway, deciding that interactions with Kylo Ren call for a certain amount of drama.

“You don’t have a choice.”

_ Get him in the river and drown him, _ something in your mind whispers. _ He’s weakened. _The thought disturbs you, and you try to banish it. “Will you at least keep some clothes on?” you ask, avoiding his eyes. “Please?”

There’s a pause. “Yes,” he says. “I need to keep my leg covered, anyway.”

“Wonderful.”

Underwater, the mud beneath your feet is slippery and unstable, and you lurch forward and cling to his arm when you think you feel something brush against your ankle. He jerks slightly at the contact, giving you a strange look. 

“There’s something in the water,” you whisper, as if whatever it is can possibly overhear you. Your muscles are frozen; you can’t take another step, your mind filled with images of being dragged under and—

“Does it feel like a threat?” he asks.

You’re still clinging to his arm. “What? Yes, it feels like—”

“Take a breath,” he says. “Separate what you feel from what’s around you. Do you feel like there’s anything in the water that could hurt you?” After a second of consideration, he adds, “Other than me?”

“I don’t… I don’t think so?”

He shrugs you off of his arm. “Then don’t bother me with it.”

Tamping down your unease, you follow him into deeper water; the flow of the river doesn’t seem to have much of an effect on him, but you feel like you’re moments from being swept away, and it’s almost enough to make the idea of holding onto Kylo Ren a little bit tempting. “What am I supposed to do now?”

He’s deeper in the river than you care to go, and he holds out a hand. The silt beneath your feet continues to shift, and your panic bubbles, because the riverbank is too far away now for a quick escape. “Come to me,” he says.

“It’s too deep.”

“It isn’t.” His smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “Trust me.”

“Survival instinct says that’s a bad idea, Supreme Leader.”

“Suit yourself, Rim rat.” 

He withdraws his hand, sinking deeper into the water, and in that moment, something else brushes against your ankle. You screech in terror and lunge for him, your flailing drenching you both before he grabs you and holds you still. He looks displeased, his wet hair plastered over his eyes. “Sorry,” you tell him. “Sorry, I just—”

“You’re more trouble than you’re worth,” he informs you yet again, and then he lifts you off your feet and tips you onto your back, while you try to cling to him with the tenacity of a Kowakian monkey-lizard. “Stop struggling,” he says, exasperated. “You’re going to swallow half the river.”

“It’s in my ears,” you wail, screwing your eyes closed before the water gets in them, too. 

“Close your mouth. _ Breathe.” _

_ Focus, _ you tell yourself. _ Focus. You aren’t going to get the best of me, river. _His grip on you loosens slightly, but he’s still there, and you focus on the tether of his body holding you from drifting away and the thrum of the water around you.

_ Breathe. _


	4. Chapter 4

_ Breathe. _

You open your eyes to find Kylo Ren staring down at you, his face completely void of any emotion, but his eyes holding a sort of mild curiosity. He has very long eyelashes, you absently note, and you look away; unfortunately, there isn’t any way to avoid looking at him without your head going underwater, so you end up staring at his mouth, instead.

That’s even worse.

His arm slides under your shoulders, and he lifts you up and tries to get you back on your own feet, but he’s apparently forgotten that he’s taller than you, so it doesn’t quite work out. Kylo Ren isn’t great when it comes to masking his irritation, and you see his nostrils flare as he seems to come to the conclusion that the simplest solution is to drag you out of the river himself.

You pretend that you’re equally unhappy about it, even though there’s something almost _ nice _about him carrying you through the water, cradled carefully against his chest. 

But in typical Kylo Ren fashion, as soon as you’re clear of the water, he drops you on the ground. “Ow!” you cry. “What did you do that for?”

“Why did I do what?” he asks brusquely, pulling on a sleeveless undershirt. He’s apparently decided that it’s too hot for anything else, and you guess you should be grateful that he’s at least putting on _ something. _

“You threw me on the ground.”

“I _ helped _you out of the river.” 

“Forget it.” _ Kriffing space-emperor, thinks he’s some kind of god… _

“We’ll stay here tonight,” he declares, stomping off into the underbrush to poke around at the trees nearby. 

“But I thought you wanted to keep going at a breakneck pace for no real reason, Supreme Leader.”

He ignores you, and you clamber to your feet and chase after him. He’s got his lightsaber in his hand already, and he furiously whacks at some twisted roots at the base of one of the larger trees. 

“Well?” you prompt. “Change in plans?”

“Do you want me to take your voice back?” he asks without turning. “It would make my evening more bearable.”

He’s stopped hacking at the roots, but he’s still got his saber ignited, his free hand pressed against his side. You wonder if some of that horrible bruising on his torso is a sign of broken ribs, or if maybe it’s something worse. 

That’s probably why he’s looking for a hole to crawl into right now, you decide. He’s probably worried that he’s going to collapse in the middle of the jungle, and that you’ll pick him clean of anything useful and make a run for it. 

“Get in,” he says. 

“What?”

Kylo Ren turns, glaring over his shoulder. His eyes, you’re concerned to note, are more than a little wild. _ More than a little red, too, but maybe that’s just a trick of the light. _

“Get in,” he repeats more slowly, pointing his saber at the suspiciously dark, small opening he’s cleared in the tree roots. “See if there’s anything down there.”

“If there is something down there, what do you expect me to do about it? Kill it with my bare hands?”

“No,” he says. “You’re just the bait.”

His stance and his tone don’t leave much room for argument, so you edge closer to the hole, squinting down into the darkness. “I’m just going to get dirty,” you tell him. “I’m still—” Your eyes widen as you realize that some of the pebbles on the ground around you are starting to float, and when you look up at him, he seems like he’s about two seconds away from kicking you into the hole himself. 

You wriggle down into the tree roots. There’s a moment of terror when you feel like you’re trapped, but then the tunnel he’s carved out suddenly widens and you tumble into a moderately-sized pocket beneath the tree. You hold up your glowrod, poking it in the clumpy, fibrous mat of roots that make up the ceiling of the small cavern. A few bugs scuttle away, and you grimace. 

“It’s okay down here,” you call out. “Bigger than the last one, I think. Deeper, at least.”

“Come out.”

When you clamber back out of the hole, Kylo Ren is sitting on a tree root. His saber is still ignited, buzzing and angry. His cheeks are flushed. 

“Can you even get down there, Supreme Leader?” you ask. “There’s a little bit of a drop.”

His expression is baleful. “Yes.”

You wrap your arms around yourself. “Should we build a fire? Once it gets dark—”

“Quiet.” 

He closes his eyes for a moment, and you feel an odd sort of stillness wash over you, almost like you can hear the rustling of leaves far in the distance. Your stomach flips. 

He opens his eyes. “If you can find anything dry enough to burn,” he says. 

“What did you just do?”

There’s something in his eyes that you can’t quite place. You don’t expect him to answer, but he does. “I reached out to see if I could detect anyone nearby. The smoke would give away our position.”

You exhale sharply. “So, no one’s close behind us?”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Kylo Ren says, not sounding sorry in the slightest. “You can use a blaster?”

“Yes.”

“Can you aim?”

“Why?” you ask. 

He tosses the blaster, and you barely catch it. You’re probably lucky that you don’t shoot yourself in the foot. “If we’re going to risk a fire, we should eat.”

He’s just handed you a weapon. It takes a moment to process, and you wonder if he’s losing his mind. It wouldn’t be all that surprising. “What?”

“Try to shoot me,” he says. “Go ahead and get it over with, Rim rat.”

“Are you insane?”

“Try it.” 

He sounds remarkably self-assured for someone who doesn’t even look like he could stand up if he needed to, and your hand shakes when you raise the blaster. You aim for his chest. 

“Go ahead,” he says. “See if you can do it.”

You pull the trigger, and he easily deflects the blaster bolt with his lightsaber. It blasts a hole in one of the tree trunks nearby, and Kylo Ren doesn’t even flinch. 

“I don’t think I have to worry,” he says. 

You grit your teeth. “If I was really trying to kill you, Supreme Leader,” you tell him, “ I’d wait til you weren’t paying attention.”

“Do you want me to take it back?”

“No.”

“I want you to find something out there.” He gestures further down the riverbank with his saber. “Find something, kill it, and bring it back here.”

Your grip on the blaster tightens. “I think that sounds more like a job for you, doesn’t it? You enjoy killing things. I don’t know how to hunt.”

He glares, but then he pushes himself to his feet and puts his saber away. The blaster is ripped from your hand and flies into his, and for a moment, you’re afraid that he’s going to shoot you. “Stay here,” he says. “Start gathering wood. If you go far, I’ll know.”

When he stomps off into the underbrush along the river, you’re almost tempted to run after him. The clearing seems safe at the moment, but that doesn’t mean that it will stay that way for long, and Kylo Ren has both of the weapons with him. At least your hands are free.

Hesitantly, you venture to the edges of the clearing. He was right to suggest that finding dry wood would be a problem; everything you touch is moist, all of the fallen limbs and twigs amidst the leaves already beginning to rot. You’re drenched in sweat, and it’s hard to motivate yourself when a fire seems so terribly unappealing at the moment.

_ Maybe higher off the ground, _you think, and you climb up onto some of the huge, twisting roots, holding out your hands to steady your balance. You’ve never had the opportunity to climb trees before, but you’ve had to scrabble up all sorts of junk piles on Nar Shaddaa. How different can it possibly be?

There are vines for you to cling to, and once you reassure yourself that they aren’t going to lurch out and attack you, you do a moderately good job of climbing up to one of the neighboring tree’s lower branches. You know you probably look extremely ungainly, and your thankful that the Supreme Leader isn’t around to judge you. 

You break off some small, pithy twigs that seem relatively dry, shoving them into your pockets. Maybe Kylo Ren can pull down some bigger branches with his magical powers. 

You hope he finds something to eat. Starving seems like an even worse way to die than being stabbed with a lightsaber. At least the lightsaber would be quick.

He isn’t back by the time you climb down, so you spread the sticks out on a rock near the river, hoping that the patch of harsh sunlight will keep them from getting too soggy. Sitting around waiting for him makes you jittery and impatient, so you take it upon yourself to get a fresh batch of water filtering in your canteens. Maybe he’ll appreciate the effort.

The river frightens you, but there’s something mesmerizing about it, as well, and you crouch down, peering into the water. Kylo Ren seemed to think that you should be able to _ feel _ if anything dangerous lurked below, but everything on this planet seems menacing and strange. You trail your fingers through the water, rinsing the dirt from your hands. 

Seconds tick by, and your anxiety grows. Part of you feels stupid for sitting there waiting for your captor to come back, but you don’t really see any other reasonable option. You’ll won’t last out in the forest on your own, especially after night falls. You need him and his weapons and his powers, and you need whoever is coming to save him to get you off this planet, too.

You jump up when you hear him coming, wiping your hands on your pants and hoping that he can’t tell that you were contemplating escape. He’s got some kind of feathered creature in his hands. When he steps into the clearing, the two of you stare at each other. Your mouth is dry. “I didn’t hear the blaster,” you tell him.

He gives a tiny shrug. “I didn’t need it,” he says.

“Oh.” When he approaches the riverside and places the bird on one of the flat rocks, crouching beside it, you wrinkle your nose. “Is it safe to eat?”

“We’ll know soon, won’t we?” He starts plucking feathers, and you retch and retreat to the tree trunk. Kylo Ren turns to watch you over his shoulder. His lips purse, like he’s thinking of something extremely judgmental to say.

“You know what to do with that?” you ask, hoping to distract him from your shortcomings.

“Yes.”

“How? Doesn’t seem like something an emperor would need to know—”

“I’ve had to do it before.”

“Oh.”

“Come here.”

“I’d really rather not.”

He lets out a long-suffering sigh, then stands. “Come here,” he says again, and when you don’t move, he seems genuinely incredulous. “I didn’t realize the slums of Nar Shaddaa accommodated spoiled little princesses—”

“I’m not _ spoiled, _Supreme Leader,” you snap. “I just don’t like bloody dead things.”

His jaw clenches. “Fine,” he says, crouching back down. “Don’t eat.”

“But—”

“Either help, _ princess, _or go hungry. I don’t care.”

You stomp over to his side, your fists clenched. “Fine,” you say shortly. “Tell me what to do.”

“Pluck the feathers.” He hands the thing to you - it’s some kind of small-winged, long-necked bird - then rinses his hands in the river. “I’ll do the rest.”

You crouch down by the rock and do as he says, though you’re struggling. “The rest?”

He stands over you. “You seem useless as a butcher,” he says. “Useless in general.”

Scowling, you glare at his boots, ripping a handful of feathers free and tossing them into the water to be swept away. “I resent that,” you mutter. “I’m trying.”

Kylo Ren lets out a startled bark of a laugh. “Do or do not,” he says. “There is no ‘try.’”

He’s clearly quoting someone, and your brow furrows. You peer up at him. “Who says?”

“Someone who dealt in absolutes.”

_ Fine, _ you think. _ Not like I wanted a real answer, anyway. _

From the corner of your eye, you watch as Kylo Ren assembles your little pile of kindling on a flat patch of dirt, then tears down some larger branches to add, just as you’d hoped he would. You expect him to produce some sort of lighter or fire-starter, so you can’t help but blatantly stare when he holds his hand out and closes his eyes, and the wood begins to smoke.

“What are you—” you begin, but then you notice that he seems to waver on his feet, and you stop and stare, concerned that he’s going to topple over into the smoldering fire. “Supreme Leader?”

He’s apparently determined to act like nothing is wrong. “Are you done?”

“Yes, but—”

“Make sure this doesn’t burn out,” he says, and you surrender the rest of the meal prep to him and sit as close as you can bear to the fire. He works in stoic silence for a while, and you watch his back while you feed twigs to the fire, contemplative. “Bring me my pack.”

You haul it over to him, and he pulls out a little silver ball that untwists into a decently-sized silver bowl. He fills it with little chunks of meat and a dash of water from one of the canteens, then sets it right in the middle of the fire. The suns are starting to descend, and as every minute passes, the fireside becomes more appealing. He sits cross-legged beside it, and after a moment of hesitation, you join him.

“Do you… do you really not know if this will poison us?” you ask.

“It won’t. I’ve seen these before on Endor.”

“You’ve been a lot of places, huh?”

He gives you that look again, the one where it seems like he’s wondering how stupid you can possibly be. “Yes.”

“Sounds nice.”

He stabs at the fire with a stick. “I always enjoyed flying,” he says. “Space is freeing.”

“Freedom sounds nice, too.” You pull on your jacket as the wind becomes noticeably cooler. “Especially right now.”

It isn’t all that surprising when Kylo Ren doesn’t deign to respond. 

Your fingertips get scorched when he passes the bowl to you, but it’s so nice to have something warm to eat that you don’t even mind. “Living the high life with the Supreme Leader of the First Order,” you say, pretending you don’t feel a flicker of _ something _ as his fingers brush against yours when you pass the bowl back to him. “Nobody on Nar Shaddaa would ever believe it.”

He isn’t eating much, and as the evening darkens, the shadows under his eyes grow deeper.

“How’s your leg, Supreme Leader?”

“It’s fine,” he replies curtly. 

“Want me to take a look?”

“No.”

He buries the fire with dirt and sand from the riverbank once you’re done eating, then hauls you up and practically drags you to the tree. “You first, princess,” he says, and then he unceremoniously shoves you into the tunnel.

You hiss when you hit the ground, rolling out of the way when he slides down beside you, little clumps of dirt and rock raining down in his wake. There’s a high-pitched howling far in the distance, and you hope it’s just the wind. He shores up the entrance with a wave of his hand, then leans back against one of the roots, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

You’re concerned.

Him wrapping the two of you in the therma-blankets should seem routine by now, but you still go stiff at the contact. The two of you sit huddled up together, both of your gazes fixed directly ahead, where tiny bits of moonlight illuminate the latticework of roots near the tunnel.

“Thank you,” you tell him impulsively. “I mean… I _ hate _ you, because I wouldn’t be here if it weren't for you, but I’m still glad you’re keeping me alive.”

“Don’t thank me.”

_ Right, _ you tell yourself, resting your head against the wall of roots. _ Don’t thank him just yet; he’s going to have you tortured and terminated once you get out of here. _

“I sense so much… _ curiosity _ in you,” he says. He still doesn’t look at you. 

“What’s wrong with that?”

He doesn’t answer your question. Instead, he turns his head to actually look at you for a moment. “You should go to sleep.”

“We might end up dying here together. Can’t you just talk to me?”

He doesn’t answer that, either.

“I’m afraid,” you announce. You know that it goes without saying, but sitting there in the dark in silence isn’t helping to soothe any of your fears. At least when you’re talking, you feel less alone. “This place frightens me.”

“I know.”

“Do you think we’re going to make it?”

There’s a pause. “I’m not dying here,” he says. “I know my destiny.”

You don’t realize that you’ve begun to relax until he wraps his arm around your shoulders, causing you to tense up all over again. He pulls you closer to his side, and you don’t try to escape, because it’s gotten cold, and Kylo Ren radiates heat. _ Small price to pay. _

You don’t pull away when he leans his head against yours, either, even though your heart races and your cheeks burn. He’s exhausted, and so are you, and even though it’s terrifying, there’s something comforting about the closeness. 

At least you aren’t alone.

It’s still dark when you wake up, and so cold that when you peer out from under the blankets, you can see your breath fog in the air, eerily illuminated by the glowrod suspended from one of the roots. You retreat back underneath it immediately, realizing only afterwards that you’re nose-to-nose with a sleeping Kylo Ren. His breath is soft and shallow, fanning across your lips, and you try to convince yourself that all you’re feeling is fear, because if he wakes up, he probably won’t be happy to see you so close.

His eyes open. You can barely make out any of his features in the darkness, but his eyes are somehow darker still, and your heart skips. There’s a flicker of surprise in his eyes, and then suspicion, and then a sort of tired acceptance. He cradles the back of your head in his hand, tucking your head under his chin, presumably so you’ll stop staring at him.

In the morning, he doesn’t say a word when he shakes you awake. There’s a glassiness to his eyes that wasn’t there before, and it’s already hot and humid under the tree, which you take to mean that you’ve slept later into the day than he probably intended. He shoves your supplies back into the packs with a little more force than necessary, then goes to climb out of the roots, leaving you to fend for yourself.

You get a close-up view of his leg when you go to hurry after him. The bandages on his leg look damp. _ He’s still bleeding, _you realize. It hasn’t healed over, or maybe he’s reopened it by being careless. Either way, it’s certainly a liability. 

He waits until you’ve taken off your jacket and shouldered your pack to produce the manacles. 

“Are you serious?” you ask him. “I thought we were past all this.”

“You were wrong,” he says, clasping them around your wrists. “You’re a prisoner.”

“I know. You don’t have to remind me.”

“Let’s go.”

“Go where?” You’re exasperated and already hungry, and the heat is oppressive even though you’ve only just begun your day. “Why can’t we just stay here?”

He looks around for a moment, then takes your arm. “We’re going to follow the river,” he says. It doesn’t seem like he’s put much thought into it, but you don’t have any better suggestions to offer. At least the river provides water and some relief from the brutal heat. “We need to keep moving.”

_ Fine. _

“You think your First Order’s figured out where your ship malfunctioned yet?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, how about the Resistance?”

His grip on your arm tightens to an almost-painful degree.

“If they find us,” you continue, “at least they’d get us off the planet, right? At least we’d be back in civilization.”

“I didn’t realize you were so eager to meet your fate.”

You fall silent. What’s the point in trying to talk to him? He’s clearly in a mood. _ Probably regrets being moderately-decent last night, _ you think. _ Kriffing bastard emperor… _

The suns hang overhead, and your misery grows with every labored, muddy step along the riverbank. There are prickly, wispy grasses to battle through, and you can’t decide if it’s better or worse than the rest of the jungle. At least it’s a bit easier to see where you’re going. 

“I wish I was back at the Burning Deck,” you say eventually, because the silence makes you even more aware of the sensation of living things hidden and creeping about out of sight. “Never thought I’d say that in my life, but here I am.”

Kylo Ren snorts. “I wish I’d had a drink while I was there,” he says. 

“Business before pleasure, I guess.” 

You trip and almost tumble over the edge of the embankment, and he yanks you back to his side. “If you can’t walk and talk at the same time, don’t talk.”

“I’d have better balance if I wasn’t shackled, Emperor Ren.”

“Or I could silence you myself.”

You bite your lip. Being unnaturally silenced through the Force was horrible enough the first time around. You wonder if he’d really do it again. He probably would. He doesn’t seem to mind the quiet, and he seems to genuinely enjoy angering you. 

_ Here’s to another day, _ you think, squinting up at the light streaking through the leaves. _ And may the Force be with us, I guess. I’ll take any help I can get. _


	5. Chapter 5

Kylo Ren is quite possibly the most resentful, petulant creature you’ve ever encountered in your entire life. You don’t know why he decided to try to teach some survival skills yesterday, but it’s clear that he regrets it. He’s been insufferable all afternoon, shoving you along the riverbank at a relentless pace. 

The more sullen he gets, the more quickly he moves, and you can’t bring yourself to feel sufficiently guilty when you realize you wish he was still on the verge of collapse. He’s a lot more bearable when he’s on the verge of collapse. 

He’s avoiding touching you today, too. He’ll push your shoulder to hurry you along, or he’ll grab your arm to steady you if it seems like you’re about to tumble into the river. You wish you didn’t miss having his hand on your arm, but you do. It gave you a sense of balance. 

In the evening, when you’ve been trudging along all day in the heat and the humidity and you’re ready to just collapse if it means you won’t have to walk another step, you decide to risk asking Kylo Ren for a favor. “Can we  _ please _ stop now? I can’t keep going.”

“No. The suns aren’t setting yet.”

“So? You’ve already said we’re running nowhere. Does it even matter how far we go?”

“We keep moving until sundown,” he stubbornly insists, and you huff and stop in your tracks, causing him to bump into you. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I’m stopping,” you tell him, and you sit down on the muddy riverbank, hitting the ground just a bit too hard because your hands are bound and useless. “I’m hungry and tired, and I’m not some unstoppable monster like you.”

“Get up.”

You glare at him.  _ Kriff, he’s tall.  _ “No.”

His eyes narrow, and you’re dragged off the ground by an invisible force, your toes barely brushing the mud. You panic, wide-eyed, but you can’t really move. Kylo Ren steps around you, and you float out over the river. He doesn’t say a word. 

“Neat trick,” you gasp.

His lip twitches, and he reaches out and beckons. You’re yanked forward and land back by his feet.  _ On solid ground,  _ you think, relieved. “Was that really necessary, Supreme Leader?”

“I realized it would be inconvenient to lose half of the supplies,” he says, hauling you back to your feet. “And I’ve wasted so much effort on you that I might as well wait to kill you until we’re on the  _ Supremacy.”  _

“Something to look forward to.”

“Oh, I do.”

“Nerf-herder,” you mutter under your breath. Bristling, you try to jerk away from him, but he doesn’t let go of your arm, so you continue to make slow, uncomfortable progress along the riverbank with his fingers digging into your skin. 

“We have a few IT-0 interrogator droids salvaged from the Galactic Empire,” he continues. “Vintage, but still just as functional as ever.” There’s a vicious sort of relish in his voice, and you turn to stare at him, searching his face to see if there’s any sign that he’s only joking. “You’ve heard of them?”

“Yes, I’ve heard of them. What’s the point in torturing me? I don’t know anything.”

“Entertainment.” 

“You—”

“Or I could practice conjuring lightning.”

_ “What?” _

Kylo Ren’s smile is grim. “The droids are worse, from what I’ve heard. I’ve only experienced the lightning.”

You stop in your tracks, wrenching your arm out of his grip. “You’ve been struck by lightning?” you scoff. “That’s a little far-fetched even for  _ you,  _ Supreme Leader.”

“I have been,” he says. “Many times.”

There’s no indication that he’s lying; his expression is completely flat. It isn’t like he’s bragging, or trying to elicit pity - he’s just stating it like it’s any other ordinary fact about his life. Your skin crawls. “That’s terrible.”

He doesn’t respond, but he does seem to lose any interest in his messed-up attempts of teasing you, returning to somber silence. He doesn’t take your arm again, even when you stumble, and the silence is every bit as oppressive as the brutal humidity.  _ No wonder he’s crazy, _ you think.  _ No wonder he’s got a terrible sense of humor.  _ You wonder if he’s serious, because you doubt you’ll be in very good shape after being electrocuted, either.

You think… you think he  _ is _ teasing, though. It’s a horrifying way of going about it, but he seems to really enjoy making you squirm, especially when you’ve done something to irritate him. Despite what he says, if he really wanted to kill you, there’d be no point in dragging you around in the jungle. The ‘supplies’ excuse is a weak one; he’d be better off keeping it all for himself. Using you as a pack-animal just means that he has to keep you fed, too.

Like you told him, you aren’t  _ stupid. _

The air is so thick and steamy that you feel almost like you can’t breathe, and behind you, Kylo Ren is panting heavily, too. “How’s your leg?” you ask gruffly. “And… the rest of you?”

“Fine.”

“Can we take a water break? Just for a minute?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s a sheer drop into the river, and you still can’t swim,” he says. 

_ Fair.  _ You lean over to survey the river, and his hand returns to your arm. He isn’t wrong; it probably isn’t the best place to stop, unless you plan to attempt a high dive. It doesn’t look like the riverbank is going to slope back down towards the water anytime soon. The trees on the other side of the narrow embankment have grown impossibly thick, too, so there isn’t much room to break away from the path you’re forging to take a break. “Well, Kriff,” you mutter.

Kylo Ren grunts in agreement. 

Now that you’ve stopped, you notice that the irritating, prickling sensation of being surrounded by unidentified  _ things _ is stronger than ever, and you turn to survey the thick wall of trees and vines. Even with the suns blazing overhead, much of the forest is in deep shadow. 

“I feel it,” he says, and his saber blazes to life, far too close for comfort. His eyes flicker along the far side of the river, and he leans slightly forward, as if bracing himself to lunge.

“What is it?” you whisper, panic quickly overriding any other emotion. “The feeling?”

“Hunger.”

The forest is dead silent, save for the hum of Kylo Ren’s lightsaber. You edge a little closer to him, now acutely aware of the fact that there aren’t that many options for retreat, unless you want to take your chances with the river. “Hey, Ren?”

He reaches out towards the forest, his fingers spread wide, and your anxiety grows when you see that his hand is trembling. He frowns, his brow furrowing in concentration. “Run,” he says.

“What?”

“Run,” he repeats, shoving you forward, and your instincts take over as the adrenaline hits. 

You blindly crash through the brush, ignoring the brambles tearing at your skin. Kylo Ren is hot on your heels after only a moment of delay, and once he’s overtaken you, he scoops you up with one arm and keeps running. It isn’t comfortable, but something in the forest around you has started shrieking, so comfort isn’t exactly your top priority at the moment. 

Then you see them.

There’s a horde of scaly, fur-patched  _ things _ scuttling across the forest floor, letting out furious clicks and wails. None of them are very large - they might come up to your hip, at the tallest - but they’ve got very noticeable red fangs and the remnants of some sort of leathery, vestigial wings that they  _ hopefully _ can’t actually use. 

“What are those?” you cry, spluttering as a branch slaps you right in the mouth. “What—”

“I don’t  _ know,” _ he yells back, all stoicism completely abandoned. One of the things leaps down at you from one of the lower branches of a nearby tree, and Kylo Ren neatly slices it in two. 

“Use your Force!”

“I can’t.” He slices another one in half, and you fumble to pull the blaster from his belt, since he’s still got his saber-free arm wrapped around your waist. “They’re Force-resistant.”

You howl in terror when one of the things races ahead of its companions and nearly claws the back of Kylo Ren’s legs, kicking it as hard as you can and sending it over the riverbank. The swarm of creatures circle you, but only a few seem bold enough to lurch forward, now that they’ve seen what the lightsaber can do. They’re on the far side of the river, too, and you hear their high-pitched shrieking in the trees above you.

The blaster is stuck, and since you have a limited range of motion, you become more and more frantic as you try to pull it free.  _ I don’t want to die like this, _ you think.  _ I don’t want to die at all, but especially not like this. _ Kylo Ren continues to stagger along, dragging you and brandishing his saber at any of the creatures that seem like they’re about to attack. You finally manage to wrangle the blaster free, aiming it shakily at one of the larger creatures trying to creep up from the path behind you.

“What do we do?”

“Kill them.”

_ Kriff,  _ you think, and you pull the trigger as one of the creatures springs forward, shocked when you actually hit it. The rest of the creatures only seem to grow bolder and more frenzied, though, and Kylo Ren curses and drops you onto the ground. 

“Stay down,” he says. “I’ll do it.”

And then he’s slicing down the vicious, mangy-looking little monsters, which seem to have come to the conclusion that sheer numbers are on their side. You roll onto your back and pick one off as it scuttles down a tree towards you, and another already has its needle-sharp claws in your boot by the time you’re able to knock it off and shoot it, too.

His back is exposed, and the things are shrieking more loudly as they try to cut in-between the two of you, tightening their circle around Kylo Ren, who clearly poses the biggest threat to them. “Ren!” you cry, and he turns just in time to cut one down before it tackles him into the river. 

_ Aim, fire, _ you tell yourself.  _ Aim, fire. _ There are too many of them to stop - and really, at this point, ‘aiming’ really means ‘trying not to shoot Kylo Ren as you pepper the forest with blaster bolts.’

And then a pair of the creatures rush at you at the same time, and one of them knocks you to your feet. Its claws dig into your shoulders, its mangled snout twitching as it sniffs you like you’re some kind of prized Meiloorun fruit it’s hoping to savor. “Get off,” you hiss, your fingers digging into its patchy, mud-caked fur as you try to keep its mouth from your neck. _ “Get off.” _

You need to hands to hold it at bay, but your blaster is in the leaves beside you, and you think you can reach it if you try. Kylo Ren isn’t coming to help; he’s nearly overwhelmed, too, and there are far too many of the creatures.  _ “Kiax,” _ you curse, and then you reach out with one hand and snatch up the blaster with an almost-miraculous speed, shooting the creature just as your strength is about to fail you.

The creatures seem intent on killing Kylo Ren first; you don’t know if it’s because they can tell he’s already badly injured, or if he’s pissing them off by slaughtering so many of them, or if they want to eat him because they can sense the Force. Either way, he’s the one that has the focus of the horde, and you wonder for a moment if you’d get very far if you left him to die and made a run for it.

He stumbles, and one of the things sinks its fangs into his arm before he rips it free and hurls it against a tree.  _ It’s that damned leg,  _ you think, furious that he’s been so adamant that he’s fine, because now his refusal to find shelter and wait until he heals is going to get the both of you killed. You kick and shoot and screech your way over to his side, barely noticing that there’s blood streaking down your sleeves.

Kylo Ren falls to one knee, and you desperately implore him to get back to his feet, which he barely manages to do. You’re backed up to the edge of the riverbank. There are bodies of the creatures littering the ground all around you, but they just keep coming. He reaches up and uses the Force to tear down one of the limbs from the tree nearest the riverbank, but he seems to lose his hold on it almost immediately, and you can see his face getting paler and paler by the second. You almost feel like you can hear his heart racing alongside your own.

You’re both going to die. 

“Turn off your saber,” you tell him, clutching the back of his tunic. Your heels are practically off of the edge of the riverbank, and a laugh-like chittering ripples through the crowd of beasts as they seem to realize that there’s nowhere else you can go.

“What?” he snaps. His eyes are dark, and much to your consternation, they’re a little glazed-over, too. Your last-ditch plan is probably going to fail, because he looks like he’s about to drop dead, with or without any external intervention

“Turn it  _ off,” _ you insist, and then the horde begins to make its final charge, and you say a quick prayer that Kylo Ren manages to get his lightsaber switched off before he accidentally stabs you when you grab him around the waist and topple the both of you into the river.

The impact knocks the air from your lungs, crushing any hope you’d had of simply holding your breath and hoping for the best. It’s much deeper here, the river narrow and churning. You thrash and flail as the current drags you under, unwilling to let go of your hold on the blaster - or maybe  _ unable, _ as your fingers seem almost paralyzed with fear. 

If the river doesn’t kill you, Kylo Ren probably will, because he’s thrashing around just as furiously as you, and given how torn up he is, all of his swimming expertise probably isn’t helping him all that much. 

The current is dragging you away from him, and you smash into a large boulder, which sends you out of his reach. “Ren,” you cry, trying to kick and breathe and not go underwater and  _ think,  _ but it isn’t working, and you swallow more and more water. 

But then it feels like an invisible hook grabs hold of your collar, and you’re mercilessly yanked within his grasp. He’s mumbling something under his breath, something harsh and unintelligible, and there’s a cacophony far upriver as the trees where you’d made your stand splinter and crash to the ground. 

You swallow more water. You remember him saying it probably isn’t safe to drink, which is a very minor issue for your brain to choose to fixate on, considering the circumstances. 

“You’re making it worse,” he snaps. “Stop struggling.”

It’s hard not to struggle, though, especially since he isn’t making fantastic progress towards either of the riverbanks.  _ I’m going to die here with the Supreme Leader, and all because of some stupid lizard-cat-things. Is that better than being killed by a worm-monster, or worse? _

You feel hyper-aware, your senses overwhelmed. You’re trying to climb Kylo Ren like a tree when you feel suddenly compelled to turn your head to look downstream, and that’s when you spot a flat patch of mud bordering the river where one of the embankments dips. 

“There!” You tug on his hair, words failing as you try to get him to see your little spot of potential salvation.  _ “There.” _

He’s gasping, too; you don’t know whether it’s from the pain or the exertion, or if it’s because he’s got you glued to him like a dead weight, but you’re terrified that he’s going to shove you away and save himself. 

But he doesn’t, and despite ricocheting off of another clump of boulders, the shore rapidly approaches. He reaches out again, almost like he’s reaching out for an invisible hand to save him, and your head bobs underwater as your progress down the river abruptly halts. The next thing you know, you’re being hauled into the mud, where you collapse face-first, sobbing in relief, even as you continue to choke and cough. 

Kylo Ren groans and slaps you on the back. “Breathe,” he says. “Breathe.”

You turn your head and find his face far too close, but neither of you seem to have the energy left to rectify the situation. “We aren’t dead,” you croak. 

“Not yet.”

You laugh, but it turns into more coughing, and then you roll away from him as your stomach decides to empty itself of all the river water it’s just acquired. 

When you turn back to him, wiping your mouth, he’s laughing, too. “You look like the Bantha’s ass now, princess,” he says, and then he flops over onto his back, something almost like a  _ grin _ on his face. 

_ It’s either the relief, or we didn’t get enough oxygen when we were in the water, or those things were venomous and we’re poisoned,  _ you decide, because there’s no good reason why you and Kylo Ren should be lying side-by-side in the mud, half-dead and in complete hysterics. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy this one, and that y’all have been having happy holidays!🖤


	6. Chapter 6

The feeling of drying mud stuck to your clothing and skin is a nuisance, but you aren’t sure that you dare to venture into the edge of the river to try to get it off. For one thing, you’ll just have to sludge right back through the mud, anyway. For another, you’re pretty sure Kylo Ren isn’t going to save your skin if you get swept away. 

“Ren.”

“I’m fine,” he bites out, the furrow in his brow indicating that he’s not even slightly fine. “I just need a minute.”

“Great. That isn’t what I was going to ask, though.” You pick a leaf out of your hair and flick it onto the ground, not far from where he still lays, soaking wet and bleeding. “You think those things are still after us?”

“I don’t know.”

You watch as he squeezes his torn shoulder, grimacing in pain, and you wince in sympathy. His cheeks are flushed, but the rest of his skin is even paler than usual. Quite frankly, the fact that he’s still able to function is a little terrifying.  _ Inhuman.  _ You don’t understand how he manages to keep going. 

The moment of shared relief at escaping certain death is very clearly gone, wiped away by the realization that you’re probably still not all that far from your impending doom. Kylo Ren’s expression is sour as he drains water out of one of the packs. You roll your eyes when he has the nerve to glare at you, like you didn’t just save his life. You figure a wet pack is a small price to pay for continued survival. 

_ Go ahead,  _ you think. _ Pretend I haven’t seen the infamous Kylo Ren’s smile if it makes you feel any better, Supreme Leader. I’m not going to forget.  _

“I’m going to burn these clothes when I return to my ship,” he mutters, trying to pull together one of the tears in his sleeves.  _ “Kriff.” _

“Or you could start a new fashion trend. I imagine all of your sycophantic pseudo-senators will be eager to follow your style.”

“Big words for a bar wench.”

“Yeah, well, you haven’t exactly lived up to all of my expectations for someone with your job, either.”

He throws one of the packs at you. It makes an unpleasant squelching sound when you sling it over your shoulder. You might actually be willing to kill someone for ten minutes in a refresher and a clean change of clothes. 

“Let’s keep moving,” he says. “If those things are still sniffing around, we should cover as much distance as we can, while we can.”

You trudge off in the direction that he so imperiously points out, heaving a beleaguered sigh as you pass by him. He’s always the gentleman, letting you head out into the dangerous, terrifying jungle ahead of him. “You’re welcome, by the way,” you call over your shoulder. 

He doesn’t reply, but you can imagine the look on his face. It should frighten you, but you can only muster enough energy to feel vaguely entertained at the thought of irritating him. 

You’re discovering that you have a vindictive side. 

Somewhere deep in the forest, still barely within earshot of the river, you’re overtaken with tremors.  _ I’m probably going to die here, on this miserable planet,  _ you think, and even though it isn’t the first time the thought’s occurred to you, it suddenly seems much more profound.  _ I’m going to die.  _

“Ren,” you say, your voice a little more strained than you’d like, “promise me you’re going to get me off this planet and torture me somewhere nice and comfortable, okay?”

There’s a moment of silence, and you wonder if he’s decided to ignore you completely. 

“Okay.”

_ Well, that’s a relief. _

Eventually, you’re forced to stop to get something in your stomach. Kylo Ren is back to stoic silence. You get the feeling that he’s in too much pain to hold much of a conversation, even though he brushes aside any of your attempts to ask him about his condition. Despite your protests, he snaps the manacles back on your wrists after you’ve managed to choke down the sodden remains of a cal-bar that was tucked away in the bottom of one of the packs. 

“Are you stupid?” you fume. “How do you  _ still _ not trust me?”

He ignores you. 

“Hey!”

“I don’t have the time to  _ trust _ you. This shared hell doesn’t make us allies, and  _ you’re _ stupid if you think otherwise,  _ traitor.  _ If there’s even a chance of the Resistance saving you, you’ll jump at it, because you’re naïve enough to assume they’ll actually have some interest in saving the  _ innocent little—” _

“Okay,” you snap, trying to wipe the mud and sweat off of your face with your hands so infuriatingly bound, “so what really happens if the Resistance finds us, huh? Because it can’t possibly be any worse than being trapped here with  _ you.” _

“I’ll be killed, if they can kill me. Or taken prisoner, used to bargain. The same goes for you.”

“I’ve got  _ manacles _ on! I’m clearly a prisoner. There’s no way—”

“A prisoner that the Supreme Leader of the First Order’s taken the time to personally retrieve. If you think that they won’t be suspicious of you—”

“There’s a big difference between being suspicious and outright  _ shooting _ me.”

“Maybe a few years ago,” he says, a mirthless smile on his lips. “Not anymore.”

“It doesn’t sound like my chances are all that great either way,” you say, “so I guess I’ll have to go with the people who  _ aren’t you.” _

“Keep walking, Rim-rat.”

“I like ‘princess’ better.” 

You turn up your nose as haughtily as you can manage, despite your manacles, despite the mud and sweat caked on your clothes and your skin. Maybe some of Kylo Ren’s arrogance is beginning to rub off on you. 

You immediately trip over yet another thick, twitching vine, and when he catches you by your elbow and stomps the vine into submission, you’re so angry that you could nearly burst. Why does he have to keep  _ doing _ that? It’s hard to be haughty when you can barely stay on your feet. 

Even if he’s horrible, and even if he’s falling apart at the seams, you still need him.

It’s probably for the best that you haven’t had the chance to see your own reflection for a while, because if the cracking, dried mud falling off of your skin is any indication, you probably look like you just rolled out of one of the waste pits on Nar Shaddaa. There’s so much dirt caked under your fingernails that you hate to even attempt to scratch any of your dry, itching skin. 

The jungle feels oppressively silent once more, and Kylo Ren’s labored breathing grows louder the longer you press through the underbrush. When you glance over your shoulder, you see that his cheeks are bright red beneath all of the grime. “You okay back there?” you ask.

He curtly nods, but when you stop for a water break, he doesn’t argue. “Should head back towards the river,” he says. “Refill the bottles.” 

“Yeah, probably should.” You twist the manacles, wondering if there’s some way you can wiggle out of them without him noticing. He doesn’t seem like he’s even paying attention; he’s too busy peering under the bacta patch on his thigh. The patch of skin you manage to see out of the corner of your eye is streaked black and purple, and your stomach turns.  _ That can’t be good. _

Kylo Ren leans back against the tree trunk, gritting his teeth. “Come here,” he says.

“Why?”

“If you keep trying to break those, you’re going to electrocute yourself.”

You twist around, alarmed. “What?”

“Failsafe design.”

Crouching down beside him, you’re a little unprepared when he takes hold of your wrists and pulls you closer. The manacles fall to the ground. He doesn’t let go.

“I… Why the sudden change of heart?” you ask him, unable to look away from his hands. They’re just as dirty as yours. “It’s only been a few hours since—”

“I’m tired of having to catch you every five minutes.”

“Right.” His wrist looks terribly bruised, and you run your thumb across his skin without thinking, realizing your mistake when he flinches away. “You’re in bad shape, Supreme Leader.”

“No.”

“Look, we should really find some shelter.”

“We’ve got hours of sunlight.”

“And you look horrible. I don’t think you should keep going—”

“I’m fine.” He stands, bracing himself against the tree as his legs wobble. 

And then Kylo Ren, the great and powerful Supreme Leader of the First Order, takes two steps and drops face-first onto the forest floor.

_ “Kriff!”  _ you cry, scrambling to roll him over onto his back before he manages to smother himself in the leaves and detritus that litter the ground. He’s unbelievably heavy, and the effort of flipping him over leaves you winded. “Hey, Supreme Leader? Ren?”

You smack one of his cheeks, but he doesn’t move. “Oh, I  _ hate _ you,” you hiss. “You just  _ couldn’t _ listen, could you? Arrogant bastard. I might as well be trying to drag a rancor through the woods, considering you’re apparently made of lead—”

There’s something about his hands that grabs your attention when you take his wrist, trying to find a pulse.  _ He knew, _ you realize.  _ He might not have been willing to admit it, but he must’ve known he wasn’t going to be able to make it for much longer. That’s why he took the cuffs off. _

“Well, damn it, Kylo Ren.” Frustrated and terrified that something’s going to pop out of the shadows now that the guy who does most of the protecting is down for the count, you sit cross-legged on the ground by his side. “What the hell am I supposed to do, now?”

_ Run, obviously. Search his soon-to-be-corpse for anything useful, take the supplies, and try to find what’s left of the ship. Hurry, before the night comes and you freeze. _

He’s still alive, though.

You can’t leave him.

If you stay out in the open after nightfall, you’ll both die.

“Please wake up?”

He doesn’t.

“Oh, Maker. Okay. I can do this. You hear me in there, Kylo Ren? I’m going to save your life, and you’re going to owe me. I’ll settle for a fancy penthouse on Coruscant and a few million credits, and amnesty for anything I do for the rest of my life.”

You know you’re being stupid; he isn’t going to care, and if he does survive, he’ll probably even find some way to criticize you for it. He doesn’t strike you as the type of man to offer bargains to barkeeps from Nar Shaddaa, even if they’ve literally wrenched him from the jaws of death.

And still, you’re going to try to save him.

He doesn’t budge when you grab his ankles and try to haul him feet-first towards the river - he’s huge and solid, and now he’s a dead weight. Maybe feet-first isn’t the way to go, you decide. Maybe if you can get his torso in motion, the rest of him won’t be so difficult to drag off to safety.

There are sure to be more sheltering tree-holes to hide under near the river; you tell yourself that you don’t need to worry, and that the uphill climb to one of the steep riverbanks is just another small obstacle. You need to get to higher ground, right? You vaguely remember Kylo Ren telling you something about higher ground being better.

You tug on his arms, and you somehow manage to drag him a few meters, but the effort sets the bite on his shoulder bleeding again, and you nearly expend all of your energy. The world around you swims and blurs, and you realize that you’re probably on the verge of starving. Every extra ounce of effort you spend to save him is costing you dearly.

_ Focus,  _ you tell yourself.  _ Imagine he isn’t as heavy as a waterlogged Hutt. Imagine you’re just as strong as he is; imagine you’re stronger than he is. Force, he’s heavy… _

Your pep-talk seems to have helped, though, because you do manage to drag Kylo Ren’s limp body another few meters closer to the sound of the river. “Come on, Ren,” you mutter, slipping on wet leaves and nearly tumbling to the ground beside him as you try to lug him over a thick tangle of roots. “A little help would be nice.”

The sun’s nearly down by the time you get him to a root-tangle that looks decently big enough to hold two fully-grown humans, and the tree itself is growing out of one of the stone riverbanks, which means that the ground is relatively less muddy. You drop him and stand up straight for what feels like the first time in an eternity, the muscles in your arms and back all screaming in relief. 

“I’m going to borrow this,” you inform him, unclipping the saber from his belt. “Wish me luck.”

Feeling his blade hum in your hands is more terrifying than you’d expected, and it fills you with a brief rush of  _ something, _ something that’s difficult to identify. Excitement, maybe? Anger? Dread?

You slash a hole into the roots. It’s messy, but you manage not to cut your own limbs off, so you consider yourself a very accomplished swordswoman.

The hole you crawl into is rockier than the others, and it seems like the roots have begun to break down the stone. A few rocks rain down when you poke at the matted root ceiling above your head, and you squint suspiciously. With the way your life has been going since you first met Kylo Ren, the whole tree is probably about to topple off the cliff into the river. 

_ Might as well take us both along with it, at this point,  _ you think, and you dust your hands off as you re-emerge outside. Kylo Ren doesn’t move when you lean over him. “I’m gonna get you inside,” you tell him, even though you’re certain he can’t hear you. 

You get your arms under his and throw all of your weight into dragging him the rest of the way to the tree, almost giving up before you manage to get him through the ragged hole you’ve carved into the roots. It’s going to be his grave, if he doesn’t get better - it’s a grim thought, one that makes you sick, but you know there’s no way you’ll be able to get him back outside again. 

When you try to prop him up, his head smacks against a rock, and he grunts. It might be the best sound you’ve ever heard, because you were starting to worry that you’d been dragging around a corpse all evening. 

“Hey, Supreme Leader?” You cup his face in your hands. “If you’ve got any ideas, I’m open to suggestions. This isn’t… I don’t really know how to fix you.”

He opens his eyes. They’re reddish and glazed, and you can’t tell if he can even see you. You don’t see any sort of recognition in his expression. At least he’s still alive, though. That’s something. 

You really don’t want to be alone. 

“I want to help,” you tell him. “I don’t think I’ve got much of a chance of making it out of here without you.”

He blinks slowly. Even though you’re relatively certain he’s not even aware that you’re right in front of him, you pretend that it’s a gesture of agreement, a promise that he’s going to pull through and help you get  _ somewhere  _ that isn’t here. You’ll take a First Order base or a Star Destroyer or  _ anything _ that isn’t this wretched, miserable forest. 

“I’m going to get water. Before it gets too cold to go out, I mean. I’d try to find something to eat, but I’d probably just poison us both.”

You wait anxiously for him to say something - you’ll even take insults, at this point.

“Okay,” you say. “Just… wait here. I’ll be back.”

When you get back, he’s convulsing on the floor, his eyes tightly closed. Some of the color is gone from his cheeks, and you can see his mouth move when you hold the glowrod to his face, but you can’t make out what he’s saying. He opens his eyes, and his pupils rapidly constrict.

“Force, Ren—”

“Stay away from me,” he spits, and when he flinches away from you and raises his hand, you find yourself unable to breathe. You clutch your throat as you choke and struggle to understand what’s happening, and you kick him in his injured leg as hard as you can just for good measure. 

The invisible grip disappears, and you fall to your knees, practically on top of him as you gasp for breath and pin his hands to the ground beside him. “I’m not trying to  _ hurt  _ you, you  _ murderous bastard,”  _ you snarl. It doesn’t have the desired effect; if anything, he only seems more panicked, and you have the distinct impression that he’s trying to muster the strength to throw you off of him, either physically or by Force. 

You scramble to snatch the blaster from his side as he tries to fling you away, and as he manages to roll the two of you over in his attempts to murder you in his pain and his rage and his feverish delerium, you put the barrel of the blaster to his head and pull the trigger. 

He drops like a lead weight, nearly crushing you, and you groan as you slowly wiggle from beneath him. It feels like it takes an eternity. “Kriff, you idiot,” you pant, rolling him onto his back. “You were really going to kill me, weren’t you?”

It’s a massive relief that you were able to thumb the blaster over to stun without looking, even in the heat of the moment. You brush his hair back from his face, trying to assess the damage. At point-blank range, a stunner has to hurt even more than usual.  _ Force, I hope I didn’t kill him,  _ you think, pressing your ear to his chest. His heartbeat is faint, but it’s there, and you sigh in relief. 

You don’t know what to do with him. 

If he comes to during another one of his fever-dreams and thinks you’re trying to torture him, he’s probably just going to try to kill you all over again, and the things he can do with the Force are terrifying. If you’d been a second slower to kick him, or if he hadn’t been injured already, you’d be dead. 

Maybe you should leave him. 

His heartbeat slows. 

You throw yourself back against the roots as he gasps and lurches away from you, dragging himself to the opposite side of the tiny enclosure. The two of you stare at each other for a moment in wary silence, and you keep the blaster leveled at his chest, your thumb hovering by the switch that will turn it lethal. 

“Remember me, Ren?” you finally ask, your voice raw and rasping. “Remember where we are?”

He nods. “Yes,” he says. His eyes are still glazed. 

“You just tried to strangle me.”

He blinks slowly. He nods again. 

Your hand shakes. “You gonna try that again?”

“No.”

“How sure are you?”

His head falls back against the wall. “Not very,” he says, and his breath rattles. “Gonna kill me, princess?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes.”

You lower the blaster. “I told you that you were in bad shape.”

“I know.”

“I don’t want to shoot you,” you tell him. 

His answering nod is almost imperceptible. His eyes are closed. You’re terrified of him, but you’re also filled with pity, as well as a twisted sense of loyalty; he’s saved you so many times that you feel like you owe him one. 

He kicks the pack nearest his foot. “Antibiotic and pain killer,” he says. “Sedative. Blue vial.”

You stare at him in furious disbelief. “You’ve had drugs this  _ entire _ time, and you’ve been using bacta patches?”

Despite the feverish glaze in his eyes, he still manages a very potent glare.  _ “Sedative,” _ he repeats. “And only one.”

“And you don’t trust me.”

“No.”

You carefully lay the blaster down by your side and snatch up the pack, rooting through it. Its contents, once so carefully organized, are now a waterlogged, jumbled mess, and it takes you a moment to find the vial. It’s smaller than you’d expected, and it’s hard to imagine that it contains enough of anything to make a difference. 

Kylo Ren hasn’t moved. You can barely even tell that he’s breathing. “How long is this going to knock you out for, Supreme Leader?” you ask him, crawling over to his side. He doesn’t respond. “Hey, you still with me, Ren?”

He grunts. 

“This isn’t going to fix you, is it?”

“It’ll buy time.”

You hold the vial to his lips, a little surprised when he downs all of the liquid inside without a fuss. Despite yourself, you gently tuck one of his wayward strands of hair behind his ear, and you see his throat bob as he swallows. Making a run for it once he passes out is probably the smartest thing you can do; you might not be so lucky, the next time he mistakes you for a threat in the middle of a feverish delusion.

Kylo Ren can barely keep his eyes open as he watches you warily, almost as if he expects you to try to smother him with the therma-blankets you retrieve and spread over the two of you. You avoid meeting his gaze as you tuck yourself against his side. He’s shivering, and you tell yourself the closeness is just as necessary as ever if you don’t want to wake up next to a frozen corpse. 

“Don’t leave,” he whispers. Whether he’s talking to you or another one of his Force-visions, you aren’t really certain, but you hesitantly take his hand under the blanket, anyway. His fingers are cold, and you squeeze them, your heart in your throat. 

“Sleep tight, Supreme Leader.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Love you all, and I’m so happy I was finally able to get this update out for you!! 🖤


	7. Chapter 7

It’s dark in the root-cave when you’re awoken by Kylo Ren briskly rubbing your arms beneath the blanket. The glowrod makes his features more gaunt and eerie, and you might be tempted to recoil, if not for the fact that you’re so, so very cold, and Kylo Ren is deliciously warm. 

“What are you doing?” you croak. You’re probably dehydrated again. Your mouth is dry, and you lick your lips. Ice-cold water from the bottle is currently very unappealing. You’ll just have to suffer. 

“You’re shivering,” he says. “It’s irritating.”

“Oh, sorry. I hate to disturb you, since you’re so busy _ dying in a hole in the ground, _ you _ ungrateful—” _

“I’m helping you,” he interrupts. His speech is slurred. “Just… let me help you.”

Your rage flickers out like a spark in the wind. He’s right. He’s keeping you alive. That’s all that matters. Besides, he’s still sedated and fevered and presumably delusional. Yelling at him doesn’t matter. He probably won’t even remember it. 

“Okay,” you tell him. “Help me.”

He keeps running his hands up and down your arms. His hands are rough, his fingers warm. He seems oddly focused, like the friction of his palms rubbing against your skin is the only thing in the world that exists. His thumb finds a bruise, and you hiss as he gently presses it.

“You’re strong,” he says, “but… _ soft.” _

You don’t know what to say to that, so you don’t say anything. Instead, you reposition yourself against his side, tucking the blankets around him a bit more snugly. He leans his head against yours, sighing heavily. You’re frozen. He’ll probably be furious if he remembers this once he recovers, and he’ll almost certainly take it out on you.

_ If he recovers, _ your inner voice whispers.

“Get some more sleep,” you tell him. 

“Okay, princess."  
  


~

Part of you is surprised that Kylo Ren makes it through the night. Part of you is also surprised that you made it through the night yourself, considering the shape you’re in after so many days lost in the wilderness. He won’t open his eyes, but he grunts when you tug on a lock of his hair. _ Better than nothing, _ you decide.

“I’m gonna go try to shoot something, Supreme Leader. I’m taking the blaster. I figure you couldn’t really use it, anyway. But I’ll be back.”

You wait. He doesn’t respond.

Leaving him this way makes you anxious, and you chew on your lip. It’s getting warmer already, even under the roots, so you fold the blankets and put them away, then prop one of the bottles close by, just in case he wakes up and can’t make it over to the packs. 

“I’ll be back,” you reassure him again, and then you crawl out of the hole. 

The air feels even heavier than before, and you grip the handle of your blaster, peering through the trees. If anything was after you, you figure it would’ve eaten you both in the night; it isn’t like your hidey-hole is all that secure. 

There’s only one thing on the planet that you’re certain is edible, and it’s the bird that Kylo Ren brought back when he went out hunting. You aren’t much of a shot, but you don’t have much choice. Foraging is liable to leave you poisoned.

You return to the tree hours later, empty-handed and exhausted. The only thing you managed to shoot was a thorny vine that seemed intent on wrapping you in its clutches, and it didn’t exactly look like it would make for a good meal. The entire time you were out hunting, you didn’t see a single creature, despite the feeling that some sort of presence was lurking just beyond your senses.

Kylo Ren’s eyes are open when you crawl back down into the hole. You’re so relieved that you could nearly cry. “I didn’t have much luck hunting,” you tell him. 

“Not surprised.”

The increasingly-familiar prickle of temper races up your spine. “At least I tried.”

“Oh, I’m sorry - is _ trying _ going to keep us from starving?”

“I should’ve left you to smother in the leaves,” you snap. “Ingrate.”

His lips twitch. “Temper, temper,” he says. 

The circles under his eyes are so deep that, in the shadows, they almost look black. _ Ghoulish. _ You remember the stories the other girls used to tell at night, stories of the ghosts of heroes from the Old Republic, left shambling around the seedy alleyways of Nar Shaddaa where they’d met their untimely ends. Kylo Ren would make a very convincing ghost.

“You seem like you’re feeling better, at least.” You take a tremendous swig from one of the water bottles; it’s blisteringly hot outside, and it isn’t much better down here beneath the dirt. “Semi-coherent, maybe.”

“It gave me time to restore focus. Channel the pain.”

“Sounds sustainable.”

“Any better ideas?”

You lean back against the root-wall opposite him. “No. I really… I really don’t want to die, Ren.”

He grimaces. “Neither do I.”

“It’s quiet out there today,” you tell him. “Even more than usual. I don’t like it. It feels wrong. I feel like my skin is crawling, like there’s something that I can’t quite…” You trail off as you notice the intent way he’s watching you. “What?”

“Tell me more about this feeling.”

You struggle to find the right words. _ “Intent. _ I feel like there’s something out there with some kind of intent. That’s the best way I can describe it. _ Sentience, _I guess, or semi-sentience. You don’t think it’s those monsters from before, do you?”

“If they’d followed us here,” he says, “they’d have no reason not to swarm.”

“True.”

“Try hunting again.”

“But—”

“It’s either that, or we starve.” He leans forward; you can see that it pains him, but he’s clearly trying to look a little more imposing. “Find a rock. Sit on it. Close your eyes and try to be _ peaceful. _ Inviting.”

“No,” you reply, shaking your head. “No way am I going to use myself as bait.”

“Not bait,” he says, frustrated. “You just need to be still and calm. You stomp around in the underbrush like a rancor. Everything in the forest can probably hear you coming.”

“Fine,” you tell him, “but only because I can’t stand to be stuck here with _ you _ all day.”

A pebble smacks the back of your head as you go to clamber out of the hole; you turn and glare, but he doesn’t look like he’s moved an inch. _ Don’t engage, _ you order yourself. _ Ignore him. _

~

It’s with the utmost smugness that you return to the hole not long before nightfall to retrieve what you need to cook one of the scrawny birds that was unfortunate enough to emerge from the underbrush while you sat in silence and tried to think peaceful thoughts. 

“Got one,” you say.

Kylo Ren still doesn’t look like he’s moved at all since you left. “Good,” he replies.

You deflate a little; you’d been hoping for more praise, though you don’t really know why. It isn’t like the Supreme Leader is heavy-handed with the compliments, even on a good day. “I’ll get a fire going. You should probably stay down here.”

He doesn’t argue. It’s yet another disappointment, because you don’t consider yourself a very adept butcher or chef, but starvation is a lot worse than getting your hands dirty. He’s asleep by the time you bring your very bland, very watery soup down to share with him.

You don’t remember anything ever tasting so good.

It’s getting cold again. Snuffing out the fire had been almost painful, and the first thing you do is bundle yourself up by Kylo Ren’s side. He stirs, blinking groggily as steam from your pitiful soup blooms between you. “Dinner for the emperor,” you announce. 

His hands are shaking as he drinks. You consider offering to help, but he’d probably bite the hand that feeds him. If he wants to stubbornly struggle instead of asking for some assistance, then you’re going to let him.

“What do you think?” you ask. “Does it get the royal seal of approval?”

“If I’d paid good credits for this,” he says, “I’d have you shot for having the audacity to serve it.”

You laugh; you can’t help it. “Guess you’ll have to find another job for me on your ship, then.”

“Looks that way.” He takes another sip. “I want to get out of this hole.”

“I don’t think I can carry you out. I don’t even know how I got you here in the first place.”

“I’ll get myself out. We’ll leave in the morning.”

~

You’re camped out in the hole for nearly a week before Kylo Ren is able to go more than a few feet past the clearing without his knees buckling. The pickings are slim, but you manage to scrounge up just enough of the bland, scrawny fowl to get by. He’s so much bigger than you, and you feel like your stomach is sticking to your ribs, so you don’t know how he’s still managing to cling to life. 

Whatever toxin is in him, it’s spreading. His mind seems sharper, but there’s a feverish haze in his eyes when he wakes up every morning, and his skin burns to the touch. He stubbornly insists that he’s fine, and while he can’t muster all of his usual vitriol, he makes it _ very _ clear that he doesn’t want to be questioned.

When you aren’t hunting, you’re sleeping. Neither of you have the energy for much else. 

You’re starting to go stir-crazy by the time Ren orders you to pack things up and get ready to move on towards whatever is next, so you don’t even bother to argue. You don’t want to die in a hole, either. Besides, you’re a better shot now than you were even a week ago; it makes you feel a little more secure. 

He leans against you as you trudge along; you don’t complain about that, either, because the fact that he’s moving at all is honestly mind-boggling. He radiates anger and pain, and you keep your mouth shut and tell yourself that you’re going to make it out of this alive, because Kylo Ren is simply too furious to die.

You angle your path to intersect with the river after a while, even though it means shoving your way through more unforgiving foliage. You need a break, and so does he, even though he won’t admit it. As you splash in the shallows and wait for the water filters to do their work, you notice that he’s just standing there, his expression slightly vague, his face even paler than usual. 

“Take your shirt off, Supreme Leader,” you demand. He’s been extremely cagey about the state of his various injuries, and you don’t trust him not to fall over on his face again without any sort of warning. 

There’s a pause. You see his throat bob. “What?”

Why do you suddenly feel flustered? “I want to see your shoulder. You can barely move your arm. C’mon, you’ve never seemed particularly shy before.”

He lifts his arm and aims his saber hilt right at your heart; if he ignited it, it would go straight through you. Strangely, you aren’t very concerned. 

“Your lips are white,” you tell him. “You’re in so much pain you’re about to faint just from this, aren’t you?”

His hand drops to his side. “No,” he grits out. 

“Stop being stubborn, Ren, and take off your damned shirt before I stun you and do it myself.”

“I can’t.”

You raise your blaster. 

“I _ can’t,” _ he repeats. 

That’s when you realize that he probably can’t lift his arms over his head to wrest himself from his shirt, and even if he could, the way it’s stuck to his skin and caked with blood and sweat and dirt would probably make it excruciatingly painful. You stick your blaster back into your belt. 

“Let me help, then,” you say. “I’m trying to keep you alive. I need to see how bad it is.”

Kylo Ren stands stock-still, and you take that as a sort of bitter acquiescence. You move closer, your hands fluttering as you try to settle on the best way to go about getting the Supreme Leader of the galaxy out of his clothes. His black shirt is already torn and filthy, and you reach up and run your fingers under the edge of his collar.

You wish he’d stop staring at you.

“Can I rip it?” you ask him.

“Can you?”

_ Arrogant even when he’s half-dead. _ “Let me rephrase that. I’m _ going _ to rip it. You ready?”

He nods. When you tear apart the fraying fabric, he grunts, his jaw clenched so tightly that you can see one of the veins in his neck bulging from the strain. You’re trying to be tough, but the mottled black-and-red streaks emanating from the punctures in his shoulder are horrifying, and as you carefully peel the remnants of his shirt away, you start to feel a little dizzy.

You have to persevere. The water from the bottles is clean enough to drink, so you figure it’s better than nothing for washing him up a bit, too. “I think you should sit down,” you tell him. The last thing you need is for him to topple over on top of you.

He sits on a gnarled tree-root, and you use a clean bacta patch as a sort of makeshift washcloth, carefully dabbing at the mess of his shoulder. If this is what his shoulder looks like after only a few days, you aren’t even sure if you want to see what kind of shape his leg is in from the thorn-puncture.

“You don’t have to do this,” he says. He’s bitten his lip so hard that it’s bleeding. 

“I know.”

“This changes nothing.”

Your daubing reveals the pale scar that runs across his chest, just beneath his shoulder. “I know,” you tell him. “Even if you did promise me the stars for helping you, I wouldn’t believe it.”

Silently, you continue to wipe the grime and blood from his skin. He’s trying to meditate, you think; he’s got his eyes closed, and he’s taking deep, shuddering breaths. You realize you’ve never seen him without bruises and blood marring his skin. 

He’s got nice skin. 

You trail your fingers along the bruising that spreads across his collarbone, and Kylo Ren flinches. “Sorry,” you tell him, your cheeks flushing. “If I hurt you—”

“You didn’t.”

Avoiding his gaze, you plaster another bacta patch over the bite. There are only a couple left. “You think the medicine helped?”

He nods.

“Think it’s going to get bad again?”

He nods. 

Your hand falls to your side. “What do we do?”

“We keep moving,” he says. “You always have to keep moving forward. It’s the only way.”

His shirt is in ruins, but his undershirt is salvageable, and considering how cold it gets at night, you figure you need to keep him in as many layers as possible. You carefully drape his cowl around his shoulders. 

“I can take it,” he says. “We’ll be fine.”

“I don’t—”

“Thank you.” His words are short and stilted, almost like he’s reading something in a language he doesn’t quite understand. He pushes himself to his feet. “Let’s go.”

~

He wakes you up in the middle of the night once again, jerking violently forward in a panic. At first, you think he’s about to try to murder you again, and your hand instantly reaches for the blaster, but he grabs your wrist before you can.

_ Kriff. _

His eyes are wild. “There’s someone here,” he says.

“What?” you hiss. “Outside?”

“No. On the planet. Life-forms. Sentient. At least two dozen.”

Your breath leaves your lungs in a ragged sigh that somehow combines both fear and relief. “First Order?” 

“I don’t know.”

“But—”

He wraps his arms around you and traps you against him as you try to scramble for the entrance to your latest burrow. “It’s too cold,” he says. “Sleep.”

“I want to _ leave.” _

“You aren’t going anywhere in the dark. That forest will kill you. Go to sleep.”

~

It’s morning when you wake up to those increasingly-familiar dark eyes. “You knocked me out,” you say, pushing away from him. “Didn’t you?”

“You were going to do something stupid.”

You take a deep breath. You’re too tired to scream at him. It won’t do any good. “C’mon. If there are sentient beings on this ball of misery, then I want to find them.”

Kylo Ren takes the lead, though, and your suspicions grow as he seems to follow the exact same path that you were on before he detected new life-forms. What are the odds that your maybe-rescuers just happen to be right where you were headed in the first place?

“Where are we going?”

“We’re staying on the move,” he says.

“But the beings you sensed, where are they? Can you tell?”

He doesn’t answer.

“If someone else is on the planet, then they arrived on a ship. Right? What if we—”

“My senses are clouded,” he interrupts. “I can’t tell who they are. They’re just as likely to be with the Resistance.”

“Even if they are, they still have a ship. We could circle around behind them and… and take it.”

Kylo Ren glowers. “No.”

“But, Ren—”

“If they aren’t stupid, they’ll leave someone behind to guard the ship, whoever they are. Had you considered that?”

“No,” you admit, “but—”

“We keep going.”

You grit your teeth. “We’re both going to die. _ You’re _ going to die.”

“If my enemies find me, I’m better off dead.”

“You can’t really mean that.”

“I do,” he says. “I’ve come too far to fail.”

“But—”

“We aren’t turning back, princess. Keep walking.”

Your anger seems more difficult to control by the day; sometimes, you worry that you’re going to go completely mad. It’ll be a terrible waste, you think, if you and Kylo Ren end up killing each other after all that you’ve been through to stay alive. 

You consider shooting him. 

He’s using his pain to push himself onward, though, and it seems like it’s inexplicably sharpening his senses. He’d probably strike you down before you could pull the trigger. 

You wipe the sweat from your brow. “When does this end?” you ask him. “Ren, we have to get off of this planet. We _ have _to, one way or another.”

“The First Order will come for me,” he says, “and when we’re off this planet, I’ll blow it into oblivion.” He gives you a look you can’t quite interpret. “I’ll give you a front-row seat.”

“Look, at this point, I’ll take the First Order over this place, so that sounds pretty good to me.”

If he wasn’t in so much pain, you think he might be tempted to smile. “I thought you’d tell me that I shouldn’t blow up the planet. To think of all the precious life-forms that would be lost.”

“Can’t say I have much sympathy for any of the life-forms here, Supreme Leader.”

He just shakes his head.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he says.


	8. Chapter 8

The days and nights blur. It’s blisteringly hot, and then it’s painfully cold, and you’re so hungry and exhausted and miserable that you start to find it difficult to push yourself to your feet every morning. 

You listen carefully to the jungle around you, hoping that either the Resistance or the First Order or someone else entirely will miraculously appear from the trees and take you  _ away.  _ You don’t care where. You don’t care what happens to you when you get there. 

Kylo Ren’s injured arm is practically unusable. He hasn’t actually told you that, but you haven’t seen him move it all day, and given how physical he usually is, you take it as a bad sign. His limp is worse, too, and you’re waiting for his next collapse. 

You won’t be able to drag him to safety, next time. You’re so dizzy that you can barely keep yourself on your feet. If you fall…

“We should stop,” you tell him, your voice hoarse. There’s a scratch on your cheek that feels like it’s probably bleeding, and you try to force yourself to ignore it. Your hands are so filthy that you’d probably only make it worse. 

He doesn’t answer, and you turn around. You see it in his eyes; the fever is back, the delirium. You aren’t even certain that he heard you. 

Your heart falls. “Ren?” you say, trudging back to him. “We have to stop.”

He nods. 

“Not gonna argue?”

“No,” he says. 

It doesn’t feel like much of a victory. At least when he’s arguing with you every step of the way, you know he’s still clinging to that angry, spiteful will to live. Without that, what does he have left?

You can’t find a suitable root-pocket to hide away in, and Kylo Ren is about to collapse into the leaves, and you’re about two seconds away from joining him. Silently, you sob in frustration, though no tears come, and you slash and hack away at one of the trees that earned your furor, Kylo Ren’s lightsaber blazing in your hand.

His hand on your shoulder startles you, and you nearly swing around and stab him, too. “Enough,” he says, his jaw clenched. “Stand back.”

He wraps his good arm around you for support and splays his fingers, and the rocks beneath the tree groan as he wrenches them from the dirt, sending splinters from the roots flying. 

The dust settles, and shrieking can be heard far off in the jungle. You hope that it’s only birds, unsettled by the commotion. If anything  _ is _ after you, it can probably just follow the sounds of destruction. 

And really, you don’t know if you’d even mind. 

You stand there, stuck to Kylo Ren’s side, both of you panting heavily. He smells like sweat and old blood, and you wrap your free arm around his waist. “Come on,” you tell him. “C’mon, Supreme Leader.”

The two of you half-slide, half-fall into the small burrow he’s managed to clear. It’s the tightest quarters yet by far, and you barely manage to fit inside. He has to fold up his long legs to be able to lie down. 

“The tree isn’t going to crush us, is it?” you ask. It might’ve been a joke, if you had the energy left to laugh about the very real possibility that you’ve just literally helped to dig your own grave. 

“Hope not,” he says. 

You pretend that you don’t see how he has to strain to get his bad arm cradled on his chest. It’s probably already eating away at him that anyone’s seeing him so broken and vulnerable. He unfastens his belt, and you’re about to start asking questions when he snaps off what appears to be an unusually thick button sewn onto the inside of the material, which he places carefully on your knee.

“What is that?”

“Tracker.”

Tense and confused, you stare at him. Kylo Ren stares right back, the look in his eyes almost challenging. Your throat constricts. “Why are you giving this to me?” you ask him.

“You know,” he says. He’s solemn, but he says it almost gently, like you’re the one who needs comfort.

You’re the first to break eye contact. 

“How do we shore up the entrance?” you wonder aloud, trying to kick some of the loose rocks into place. “We’ve got a few hours, but it’ll start getting cold before long.”

“Use one of the therma-blankets,” he says. “I don’t need it.”

“But—”

“Just do it.” He leans his head back and closes his eyes, effectively signaling the end of any potential arguments. 

It’s going to be a long, cold night. 

You manage to make a pitiful sort of barrier with the blanket and bags and bits of loose rock and root. There isn’t much room to work. Besides, you’re planning to share body heat and the remaining blanket with the Supreme Leader, whether he likes it or not.

When you’re moderately satisfied, you scoot back and dust off your hands on your shirt; it’s mostly a pointless gesture, since your shirt is equally filthy. You faint or nod off - you can’t even tell which - jerking suddenly awake either seconds or hours later.

Kylo Ren is watching you, his eyes slightly watery.  _ Poison?  _ you wonder.  _ Or fever? Or both?  _ There isn’t much you can do about it, not without more medicine. You brush his hair back from his forehead. His skin is clammy.  _ “Droyk,” _ you curse, digging through his pack for the water flask. 

“You speak Olys Corellisi,” he says, his voice bordering on accusatory. 

_ “Mahn uhl Fharth bey ihn valle,” _ you reply, spreading your arms as grandly as you can within the confined space. 

He tries to laugh. It’s more of a rasp. “‘May the Force be with you.’ Of course.”

“That’s pretty much all I know, really. Old Corellian has some good curses, and a lot of the smugglers like to wax philosophical with old proverbs when they’re drunk. What about you, Supreme Leader?”

His smile falls, and his eyes look terribly old and tired. “Kylo,” he says. “Just Kylo. My father was Corellian.”

“Ah.” You offer him the uncapped flask, but he turns his head away. “And your father taught you Old Corellian?”

“I picked it up, here and there.” He turns back to study you for a moment, and you find yourself unable to look away, despite the uncomfortable intensity of his gaze. “What do you think is on my mind right now?”

“I don’t—”

“Focus,” he snaps. “Look in my eyes.”

“I don’t know,” you tell him, frustrated by his sudden surge of temper. “I have no idea what’s going on in your head. I’d expect you to be worried about dying, but you’re too proud to admit that’s even a possibility.”

He grabs you, his hand wrapping around your neck as he pulls you close, until his forehead rests against yours. You’re afraid to breathe; even with him weakened and slightly-incoherent, Kylo Ren’s hand on your neck is worrying. His fingers brush the hair at the nape of your neck, inspiring an involuntary shiver. 

“You aren’t  _ looking,” _ he insists, and you panic as the world suddenly begins to speed past you. 

He’s right in front of you, still holding you… but he also  _ isn’t.  _ You can see him, can feel him somewhere just ahead in the darkness, almost as if he’s waiting for you at the end of a long tunnel. “I don’t like this,” you say, your voice echoing. “I want to leave.”

The shadow at the end of the tunnel moves farther away, and you hurry after it. You can’t feel his hand on your neck any longer, or his forehead pressed against yours. It’s all darkness, and the strange sensation of  _ something  _ waiting for you. Terrified and uncertain, you push forward.

You’re in a room, sterile and brightly-lit. Kylo Ren stands at a vast window, overlooking the wide expanse of space. A uniformed man steps up to him, and you start, but neither of them seem to notice you. 

“We found something that might interest you in the recovered files, Supreme Leader.”

“What is it?”

“One of the identified Outer Rim Resistance informants’ names was flagged when they were entered into the database.”

“And?”

The man in uniform, whoever he is, is visibly tense. “A girl - human - in the Corellian sector of Nar Shaddaa. She’s in the Project Harvester files. She was a late entry, so they have barely any records—”

Kylo Ren turns, his eyes burning. The officer quails as he stalks over to him. “Do we have this girl, or did the Resistance get to her first?”

“I… I believe she’s still there, my lord,” the man replies. “As far as we can tell, she simply passed information along to an intermediary; I doubt the Resistance even knows that she’s a Force-sensitive—”

“You  _ believe?” _ Kylo snaps. “You  _ doubt?” _

“We’ll send a retrieval team at once, Supreme Leader.”

“No,” he replies. His cape billows as he turns on his heel and heads straight towards you. “I’ll do it myself.”

You gasp when he passes through you, and then you aren’t watching him any longer; you  _ are  _ him. 

You’re in the Burning Deck, watching yourself wipe down the bar. It’s unsettling, seeing yourself through someone else’s eyes. Kylo Ren is surprised. Disappointed. He’d hoped you’d remind him of someone else, but you don’t. You’re just a barmaid. 

You see yourself look up when he approaches, your eyes friendly and open. He doubts that you’re the girl he’s looking for; he doesn’t sense anything. You smile at him. “Hey, there,” you say, “what’ll you have, mister…?”

He knows you’re trying to flirt with him, trying to increase the odds that he’ll leave a few extra credits on the bar. He isn’t surprised; he clearly has more money than most of the other patrons in the bar. “Jacen,” he says impulsively. He even manages to force a smile. He has to be sure. “And you?”

You tell him your name. Certain now that he’s found the right person, he raises his hand, and your eyes widen. You dart back from the bar, and Kylo Ren is flooded with a grim sense of satisfaction when he feels the Force stir.  _ Latent power,  _ he thinks, watching the bottles on the shelf behind you rattle as your fear spikes.  _ Not much, but it’s there.  _

Through Kylo Ren’s eyes, you watch helplessly as your body hits the floor, how the other barmaids cower when he goes to retrieve you. He scoops you up in his arms, snarling something in Concordian to a bounty hunter who looks a little too curious. He doesn’t want anyone else to be curious. You’re his problem, now. 

He shoves the door to the Burning Deck open, and you let out a strangled cry as you’re shoved out of his mind and his memories. He hasn’t moved, and neither have you; you almost feel like you can hear his heart beating alongside your own. 

“You looked,” he says, so close that you can feel his breath on your lips. “What did you see?”

“Project Harvester,” you reply. Your mouth is dry, and your throat feels tight. “What is it? Why me?”

“A remnant of an old initiative of the Galactic Empire. After the Jedi Purge, they hunted down any Force-sensitives to train or to cull.”

“But the Empire… the Empire fell decades ago. I wasn’t even born.”

“The existence of the First Order should prove that not all of the Imperials surrendered when the New Republic tried to take over the galaxy. Project Harvester was run by darkside zealots. They spent years operating underground, waiting for the Emperor to be reborn through the Force.”

Everything seems to be moving in slow-motion. “What does that mean?” you ask. “For me?”

“You’re Force-sensitive,” he tells you. His eyes are glazed, and you can feel the heat of his skin where it rests against yours. “I won’t let her try to build a new Jedi Order. I’d kill you first.”

“You were always going to kill me,” you whisper. 

“No,” he says. His grip on your neck tightens. “No, no.”

“Then what?”

“I wanted to train you.”

~

You watch the poison and fever burn through Kylo Ren’s body, huddled beside him with your arms wrapped around your knees. Maybe you should just put him out of his misery. If he’s telling the truth, if what you’ve seen of his mind can be trusted, then he’s been lying to you this entire time.  _ Why? _ Why not tell you the truth, at least? It isn’t like you could’ve escaped, either way. 

Maybe that’s it, though. Maybe he was worried that you’d try to tap into the Force to overpower him… but you can’t imagine that he’d have expected you to be successful. Even now, even knowing that it’s there, seeing it through his eyes, you can’t actually  _ do _ anything with it.

The Force isn’t at all what you’d expected. Neither is Kylo Ren. 

Somehow, it stings to know that he’d been disappointed when he found you. It’s stupid, probably, but you can’t help it. You’ve never had anyone think you were special before, that you’re important, and you’d almost felt a twisted sort of pride when you’d seen the memory of him standing on the deck of his starship, rushing off to chase you down across the galaxy. 

But you weren’t what he’d hoped. You weren’t  _ her  _ \- a name he hadn’t allowed himself to think, even in his memory. Someone he’d been trying to forget. Someone he was trying to replace. 

_ Jealousy.  _

You recoil in horror when you identify the trickling burn of some unfamiliar emotion flowing through you as jealousy. Kylo Ren doesn’t deserve your jealousy, even if it’s only faint, even if you’re only envious over the idea of someone treasuring you so carefully in their memories. In two years, will anyone at the Burning Deck even spare a second thought to the girl who got carried off by a stranger in the middle of the night? 

Is anyone even worried about what’s happening to you right now? You doubt it. 

“I hate you,” you tell him, wiping a traitorous tear from your cheek. “I really hate you, Kylo Ren. I was  _ fine _ with being nobody. I never  _ needed _ anybody. Do you hear me? I don’t want any part of your war, or your Force, or  _ you.  _ You and the Resistance can blow each other to smithereens, for all I care.”

You know he can’t hear you, but when he shudders, you feel a pang of guilt. He’s probably dying. What’s the point in yelling at a dead man? It’s cruel, and you’re many things, but cruel isn’t one of them. 

What are you going to do if he dies? The Resistance is probably already on the planet, and if they’ve got someone Force-sensitive with them, too, then Kylo’s hack-job at the wreckage of his ship won’t be enough to convince them that everyone onboard died in the crash. They’re probably catching up, and the sensations you get from being surrounded by lifeforms don’t even have enough nuance to tell you whether or not a troop of vengeful rebels is right outside. 

From his memories, you can safely assume that the Resistance wants to get their hands on you, too - or they will, at least, if they find out you can feel the Force. You don’t particularly  _ want  _ to be a war commodity, so you wonder if it’s possible to hide it from them. 

You’re hopeful that they’ll be able to tell that you’re just a First Order prisoner, anyway, especially with the cuff still dangling from one wrist. It makes for a good sob story. Maybe someone will drop you off back on Nar Shaddaa, if you’re lucky. 

_ But where will that leave Kylo Ren? _

You shouldn’t care, but you do. A couple of weeks ago, and you’d have told yourself that you’d be happy to watch him go down in a rain of blaster fire, but now… Now, he’s a  _ person,  _ not just some generic, masked monster. You doubt they’ll even kill him quickly. It would make far more sense for them to keep him as a hostage, as long as the First Order remains. 

Would they torture him? Would you feel guilty, if they did?

“You have to get better,” you whisper. “I don’t want you to die, Kylo. Okay?”

The tracker lies in your lap, a horrible, hateful reminder of the fact that he’s given up. Hands shaking, you pull a loose thread from your ruined shirt and thread it through one of the button-holes, tying it around your neck. If you press it now… 

If you press it now, it’ll mean that you’ve given up on him, too.

You curl up around him, your hand on his cheek. There’s a thin line in his stubble where his scar crosses his cheek, and you trace it with your fingertip. Your ear lies just over his heart, and you listen carefully to its beating, willing it to continue. Your eyes are burning.

“Don’t leave.”


	9. Chapter 9

He hasn’t woken up. 

You don’t know how long it’s been since the suns rose. During the night, you’d felt guilty for the fact that you were enjoying his fever, because the warmth radiating from his skin was the only thing keeping you from succumbing to the cold. At least the warmth means he’s still alive, his body still fighting. 

You don’t know what you’re going to do when he grows cold. 

The world has taken on the blurry, rushed-slowness that you experienced in the terrifying moments when you first plunged into the river with him, the disorientation before your head broke the surface of the water. You’re drowning, slowly, and he can’t save you this time. 

A small, dry laugh escapes you. _ I guess that’s why he wanted to teach me to swim, _you think. 

“I’m going to find… something,” you tell him. “Water. Food, maybe. Something.”

You rest your hand on his cheek for a moment, then you crawl out of your den of mouldering leaves and loose sand and rock, wincing as the painfully bright sunlight peeking through the canopy of the trees high above. 

“I’m not leaving,” you say, pushing yourself to your feet. “Promise.”

Blaster in hand, you stagger down to the riverside, barely waiting for the water to filter through your bottle before you guzzle down as much as you possibly can. Your stomach doesn’t agree with such a sudden onslaught, and you gag and curse, kicking the sand in a furious tantrum.

_ It isn’t fair. _

The rushing behind your ears is louder than the rushing of the river. You get back on your feet and trudge along the river, leaning against the steeply-climbing embankment for support. Something will turn up - a fish, a bird, _ something _ \- and when it does, you’re going to shoot it.

You don’t remember sitting down, but you realize that you are, your legs spread out on the gritty mud, your boots collecting water as your back rests against a fallen tree sticking out from the riverbank. A small, spindly little water-spider skitters along the surface of the water. You wonder what it would taste like. 

The suns are directly overhead, like two angry, baleful eyes of some ancient god, watching as you pay the price for encroaching upon its domain. Your head lolls back as you watch the breeze ruffle the branches above you, and you wish that you were made of nothing at all, simply floating along on the wind.

Having a body right now isn’t exactly working in your favor.

_ Force, _ you think. _ Is this really it? This is how it ends? _

You feel a ripple, and your chin drops to your chest as you frown at the water, concentrating. _ Not the water. Not the sand. Not the air, either. _Are you imagining things? It’s certainly possible.

But something feels _ different. _ Not right. “Kylo,” you whisper hoarsely, clutching the blaster to your chest as you use the branches of the fallen tree to drag yourself to your feet. You barely notice the splinters in your palms. 

_ Kylo. _

You have to get back to him. If he dies without you there… you’ll have broken your promise. 

There’s a presence in the forest that is starkly unfamiliar, bubbling with an excited sort of hunger. You worry that some new creature has tracked you to your den, eager to partake in the easy meal of Kylo Ren, unconscious and weak. The rushing grows louder, and by the time you find the patch of dirt where you slid down to the riverside, all you can hear is a high-pitched, shrill ringing in your ears.

You crawl up the riverbank on your hands and knees, too spent to make it to your feet. You’ve still got your blaster, though, and you aren’t going down without a fight. You aren’t going to let Kylo Ren go down without a fight, either.

Your head crests the edge of the embankment, and you raggedly gasp from the effort, drawing the attention - and the aim - of a dozen uniformed humans currently gathered around your den. The symbol on their jackets is vaguely familiar. Surreal. 

_ Resistance. _

“Kriff,” one of the men exclaims, his blaster still trained directly at your head, “what the—”

“In… inform,” you croak. “Informant.”

“Don’t shoot, Tev,” a woman says, holding up a hand. She lowers her weapon, but only slightly. “You’re an informant? For who?”

Your voice is gone. Beneath your belly, you clutch the hilt of your own blaster, thankful that the embankment provides some cover. Isn’t this what you’d hoped for? “Sold info to the Resistance. Nar Shaddaa. Worked in… worked in a bar.”

“How did you get here?” the man asks.

You nod towards the hole that they’ve already managed to half-excavate in their haste to get the Supreme Leader in their grasp. “Ren.” 

There’s suspicion on some faces, horror and pity on others. You guess you probably don’t look so good, and neither does Kylo Ren. As frightening as it is to give up your only weapon, you feel that you don’t have much of a choice, and you weakly toss the blaster up onto the ground in front of you. Several of the Resistance members shout things at you, but it’s all a haze.

The woman who spoke before barks for them to be quiet, and she hesitantly steps closer and snatches your blaster from the ground. “Come where we can see you,” she says. “Hands in the air.”

“Can’t,” you reply simply, but you try to pull yourself up farther on your elbows. “Can’t.”

She nods to two of the others. “Get her up here,” she says. “Careful. Get Ren out, too. We need to move.”

They haul you up and lay you down on the forest floor. “Force, she looks awful,” one of the women says, crouching down beside you. “Riat, we’re going to have to make camp here. We can’t extract two, not in as bad of shape as they’re in.”

“So, we shoot Ren,” the man called Tev says. “Leave him here to rot. At least we’ll know for sure that he’s dead.”

_ No, _you think, terror gripping your heart.

“No,” the leader says - the woman they called Riat. “Have you lost your mind? He’s worthless to us if he’s dead. We have to get him back to base.” She nods decisively. “We’ll make camp.”

The woman crouching beside you is a bit more slight in build than the others, and she offers a slight, terse smile. “Gonna get a vitamin slurry in you, okay? I’m the medic, so don’t worry if I poke and prod a bit - just stay still.”

“Vitamin… slurry?”

“And a rehydration packet or two. Full workup will have to wait until we’re back on the ship, I’m afraid.”

You’d warn her, if you could, that shoving a ‘vitamin slurry’ down your throat right now probably isn’t going to end well. You can’t really get the words out, though, and it doesn’t seem like anyone is all that interested in what you have to say, anyway.

Excavating the Supreme Leader is clearly at the forefront of everyone’s minds, including your own. He’s still alive, isn’t he? And these people… maybe it won’t be as bad as he’d told you. Why should you trust anything he ever said? He lied to you. He was going to kill you.

As she pats you down, checking you for either weapons or injuries, her hand comes close to the tiny tracker on its thread, tucked away beneath the material of your shirt. _ Don’t notice it, _ you think _ Please, don’t notice it. _

And then you wonder why you’re thinking that - you’ve already been rescued. It’s _ over. _ Kylo Ren didn’t want them to find you because they’re his enemy, but you aren’t. There’s no reason you should want to escape from them. They’re going to get you out of here.

That’s all you’ve wanted.

You can’t breathe when they drag him out of the hole beneath the tree, your heart in your throat. The medic abandons you in favor of Kylo Ren, and you don’t mind; when she informs the others that he’s still alive, you let out a ragged sob of relief. 

The view from the ground isn’t good, but you watch as they gather around him, hear their shock - and in a few cases, satisfaction - at the state that he’s in as fabric is methodically torn and ripped away to reveal his injuries.

“Kriff,” one of them swears, “you think he’s gonna keep that arm?”

“Don’t know,” the medic replies. “Don’t know if he’ll keep the leg, either. Envenomated by something, and infected. Looks like he’s lost a lot of blood. I don’t know… We weren’t prepared for this. We might need to call in backup.”

“We’re days from the ship, even if we put up a signal right now.”

“We could scout for somewhere closer to land a ship.”

Riat groans. “Nothing showed up when we scanned, Tev. Besides, then the extraction teams in the other three quadrants wouldn’t be able to make a quick exit if they needed it.”

He rounds on her. “Does it matter? We _ got _ him. He’s here. This team just became the priority. The others will understand if we have to inconvenience them a little.”

“It might not be just an inconvenience,” a shorter man argues. “If they come across some of the things we saw out there, bringing the ship here could strand them in a _ bad _ place.”

“We can’t bring the ship closer, anyway,” Riat says. “We get him in shape to travel, and we head back for the ship first thing in the morning. I’ll carry him on my own _ back _ if I have to. Everyone understand? I’m pulling the captain card. That’s final. Get the tents up.”

_ Tents? _ You could cry at the thought of such a luxury. Your heart is beating too rapidly, and your fingertips and toes are tingling and numb, but you’re filled with relief. It’s over. You roll onto your side, listlessly watching as they try to drag Kylo Ren back from the brink of death.

_ It’s over. _

Once they’ve got him in a fearsome, heavy-looking pair of manacles of his own, the mood of the Resistance fighters seems to become more genial. The tents they pitch in the small clearings between the trees are mottled green and brown, designed for a forest… but not a forest like this one. You can’t imagine anyone ever designing anything with the intention of exploring a forest like this one.

You give up on listening for their names as they hurry to set up camp. After so many days with only the oppressive silence of the jungle and Kylo Ren’s labored breathing for company, their voices and tools and movements form a cacophony in your head. You want to close your eyes and cover your ears, but you can’t. 

You have to keep an eye on Kylo. You promised him.

One of the Resistance members helps you up off the ground. “Let’s get you inside,” he says, leading you to one of the tents. The material of the floor reminds you of your therma-blankets, but it’s thicker, and it crinkles when you step on it. 

“Can I change?” you ask. “I mean… is there anything…?”

_ Pity. _ You can see it on his face - can practically _ feel _ it. “I’m sure we’ve got something,” he says. “Might not fit—”

“Don’t care.” Your laugh is hollow. “Really, I don’t care.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

A different man brings you a sweater. It’s coarse and brown, and you love it. “Thank you,” you tell him, and you even manage to smile. You were always good at charming anyone and everyone who came into the bar, and it can’t possibly hurt to have these Resistance members on your side, can it?

He steps outside to give you a moment of privacy, and you peel off your disgusting, filthy shirt and throw it onto the ground. If you could, you’d happily burn it. It almost seems a shame to put on a clean sweater over your sweaty, dirt-streaked body, but you don’t care. Maybe they can burn it, too, once you’re done with it.

You tuck the tracker safely away under your clothes, wondering why you’re even bothering to keep it, much less _ hide _ it. With the Resistance already here, it couldn’t possibly be useful.

The medic returns to the tent, and she sits down on the cot crammed in beside yours. The quarters are so tight that her knees practically brush against yours. You lean away.

“I’m gonna be straight with you,” she says. “You’re in bad shape, kid. Not as bad as Kylo Ren… but it’s going to take some time for you to bounce back. Things like this… they have lasting effects. They change you.”

You nod.

“Can you tell me anything?” 

You rest your head in your hands. It feels too heavy for your neck, like a plump flower on a wilting stem. “Like what?”

_ Breathe in. Breathe out. _

“How did you end up here, with him?”

“Nar Shaddaa. I grew up there. You’ve heard of it, right?”

“I have.”

“Lots of people pass through. I sold info. I didn’t think it was important. The First Order did, I guess. Kylo found— I mean, Kylo Ren. He found me.”

“And his ship?”

“Crashed. He thought it was sabotaged.”

“I see.” She pauses for a moment. “Did he hurt you?”

“What?”

The hand she places on your knee is probably meant to be comforting, but strangely, it isn’t. “I want to make sure you’re in good health,” she says. “It’s my job. So, if he hurt you—”

“He didn’t.”

_ He saved me, _ you think. You don’t say that, though; you can already tell from the look in her eyes that she won’t believe it. If you don’t play your cards right, you’re going to end up right back in handcuffs, just like him.

“Where is he?” you ask. “How is he?”

“Don’t worry,” she says, “he’s still dead to the world, and there are four blasters trained on him. I doubt any of us are going to sleep until we get him in a containment unit somewhere secure.” She stands, her hair brushing the ceiling of the tiny tent. “That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get some sleep, though. I imagine that’s been hard to come by, considering the company.”

“Yeah,” you reply woodenly, lying down on your side. “It has been.”

~

You hear them whispering about you on the other side of the tent. The campsite is small due to the limited groundspace, so you don’t know why they even bother whispering. There can’t be any secrets kept in close quarters like these.

They’re not sure if they should trust you. Some of them are vehemently offended by the suggestion that you’re anything other than yet another helpless victim of the First Order, while others point out that there’s no way to verify your story. They wonder why you didn’t kill him - you have a blaster, and he wasn’t in any shape to fight you off.

Someone even suggests that maybe you’re a bounty hunter who found herself in over her head with uncooperative prey. You find that theory the most flattering, no matter how silly it is.

You track the passing of time by the dropping temperature in the tent, though it is wonderfully insulated compared to the holes you’ve been living in for so long. There’s a thick blanket on your cot, and you wiggle under it. You hope he’s got one, too.

The tracker feels like it’s burning a hole through your skin. If you’d known they were close, if you’d been _ certain _ that it was the Resistance, would you have pressed it?

You aren’t sure.

Your sleep is uneasy. There’s an unfamiliar woman in the cot across from you. You pretend you’re still asleep when she comes inside, but the brief dip in the temperature makes you shudder. You tell yourself that it’s all for the best; even though Kylo said he’d rather die than be captured, he couldn’t possibly have meant it, could he?

_ I’m not going to let you leave, _ you think. _ I promised. _

~

The woman sharing your tent is already gone when the medic shakes you awake around dawn. It’s still cold enough that her breath fogs in the air, and you curl in on yourself. You feel… _ alone. _

“We didn’t bring a lot of supplies,” she says, “but tell me which scrapes and bites are the worst, and I’ll patch them up as best as I can. Okay?”

“Okay,” you reply. 

“Think you can eat something? It’s just basic rations, cal-bars, some rehydrated bread.”

“Yes, please.” You wince as she dabs one of the cuts on your cheek with something that smells sharp and acidic. “And Kylo Ren?”

“Believe it or not, I got him on his feet. I doubt he even knows his name right now with everything he’s on… but that can wait. We aren’t here to interrogate, just to extract.”

Your pulse speeds. “He’s awake?”

“Sure is. Hold still - it’s just disinfectant. But don’t worry. Even if he could string a coherent thought together, those cuffs are designed _ just _ for people like him.”

_ And people like me, _ you think. _ People who can sense the Force, who can use it… If they find out about Project Harvester, will they clamp my wrists in suppressive cuffs, too? _

You should make conversation. Conversation makes people comfortable, sets them at-ease. “Do you know that they work?”

“We do,” she says proudly, packing up her med-kit. “We tested them on one of our own, and she’s every bit as strong in the Force as Kylo Ren.”

_ She. _

Biting your lip is a mistake - you must’ve busted it up again sometime yesterday. You follow the medic out of the tent, standing stiffly as they break down the campsite with impressive efficiency. These are clearly people who are used to getting in and out of places in a hurry.

Your heart nearly stops when you see him; he’s propped against a tree, his head bowed. The sweater they’ve stuck him in is identical to your own, and in different circumstances, you might’ve found that funny. He appears to be missing an entire leg of his pants. You can only assume that Resistance supplies didn’t include anything Supreme Leader-sized to replace what they had to cut away to treat the wound on his thigh.

Bandaged, bruised, and somehow, he still seems to be brooding.

The medic said she doubted he could even remember his own name, but you know at once that she’s wrong. He’s awake, and he’s aware, and when his eyes meet yours across the clearing, the fire inside him is still burning.

Approaching him is a bad idea, but you want to do it, anyway. Really, you don’t even know what you’d say to him. What can either of you possibly say to the other?

“I know this isn’t ideal,” Riat says, walking up to you with both of your packs in her hands, “but if you could carry both of these…”

“I can. Anything that makes us get out of here faster, I’ll do it.”

~

The next two days pass in a relentless blur. You march through the wilderness, kept tightly shielded in the middle of the Resistance members, you eat as much as you can stomach, and you ache from the cold at night. Even though you know you’re warmer now, sheltered inside a tent and wrapped in warmer layers, the nights seem even more bitter without him beside you.

He hasn’t tried to speak to you. He hasn’t spoken to anyone.

The jovial mood that seemed to initially bolster the team when they captured the Supreme Leader seems to fade under the harsh conditions of the jungle, and by the time the suns are at their zenith on the second day, tempers are on the rise. It’s almost like an itch, persistent and irritating, but you focus on it, because it’s better than focusing on Kylo Ren’s refusal to even _ glance _ at you.

“Everybody, stop,” Riat says suddenly, pressing her comm unit to her ear. At first, you assume she’s just testing to see whether or not they’re back in range of the ship - one of the men had mentioned back at camp that their signals are nearly useless out in the jungle.

“What is it?” one of the men holding Kylo asks. “Riat?”

Her face is grim. “First Order presence on the planet,” she says.

“What?” the man called Tev hisses.

“Don’t panic,” she says. “We knew they’d most likely be hot on our trail. We keep a low profile, and we can make it to the ship. We’ll be in hyperspace before they manage to pinpoint our location.”

“If he’s dead, there’s no risk of him being _ rescued—” _

“That’s a last resort. We don’t have time to waste arguing. Get moving.”

Kylo doesn’t seem fazed by the news. You wonder if he’d already sensed them, somehow, or if he simply doesn’t care any longer. 

The extraction team picks up their pace, despite the fact that neither you nor Kylo Ren are in any shape to be speed-marching through the jungle. There’s a distant boom, and the trees rustle.

“They’re getting close,” the man holding Kylo says. 

“They’re trying to track from above, and the tree cover’s too thick. We can make it.”

“Just _ shoot _ him.”

Blasters are being pointed, and Kylo Ren’s still hanging his head, solemn and severe, and you _ promised _ him you weren’t going to leave him behind in this _ hell— _

“No!” you cry, and they all turn to stare at you. You didn’t even realize you’d ripped the tracker from around your neck, but there it is in your hand, deceptively small for something so incriminating. “You said you were gonna get us out of here. Start shooting, and I’ll take my chances with the First Order.”

One of the men looks ready to lunge at you, and you take a step back, holding the tracker in your fist behind your back.

“Don’t,” Riat says. She holds her hands up placatingly, and most of the blasters aimed at Kylo Ren - and at you, now - lower. “Put it down, please. We’re on the same side here. We aren’t going to hurt you; you have to believe me.”

You’re trembling. You seem to be doing that fairly often, lately. Your finger hovers over the button, and you jerk your chin towards Kylo Ren. “What about him?”

She exchanges a look with one of the other Resistance fighters. “We aren’t going to hurt him, either.”

_ Lies. _ You blink back tears, wishing that you couldn’t _ tell _that she’s lying to you, wishing that you could just pretend to believe her and escape this planet and leave Kylo Ren to whatever fate he has coming to him. 

His eyes meet yours. There’s resignation there, and maybe something a little more significant. Maybe it’s regret, or maybe it’s desperation, or maybe it’s his solemn realization that you’ve already made up your mind. He bows his head slightly, almost as if he’s trying to tell you that he understands. You don’t have any choice. 

You press the button. 

The tracker drops onto the forest floor behind you, and you see the relief in the eyes of the Resistance members as you raise your empty hands in surrender. “Just get me off this planet,” you tell them, tears freely flowing down your cheeks. “I just want to get off this planet.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew, tough chapter! I hope you all enjoyed it 🖤


	10. Chapter 10

You see the relief on the faces of the Resistance fighters as your shoulders slump in resignation. “I’m sorry,” you say, your voice trembling. You have to distract them, now; you have to stall until Kylo Ren’s men can swoop in and save him. “I’m sorry. I just… I don’t want to die here. Not after all of this.”

When your voice breaks, Riat’s expression softens slightly. “It’s okay,” she tells you. “You made the right decision.” Another muffled boom rumbles through the trees. “Keep moving. We don’t have time to waste—”

Even through the thickness of the trees, you can all hear the whirr of ships zipping past somewhere high above. Your hands are shaking. You want to throw yourself at Kylo, to feel that physical closeness that’s kept you clinging to hope through all of the dark, cold nights.

His eyes are closed. He doesn’t look at you.

The rest of the party begins to move along, but Tev circles around behind you, his blaster only half-heartedly lowered. Your pulse pounds so frantically that you can hear it, an almost hypnotic thumping behind your ears. “You heard her,” he says. “Move.”

You turn to face him, hoping that there’s no chance he’ll notice the button tracker on the ground between you, but he’s already stepping closer, and his boot taps against it, dislodging it from some of the detritus of the forest floor.

He picks it up and squints at it, and you realize too late that the thing has a tiny, flickering green light on its side. His eyes widen. “She activated the tracker,” he cries to the others, “they know—”

Then the crack of splintering trees sends you all scattering for cover. You sprint into the forest as blaster fire peppers the clearing, your instincts overwhelmingly ordering you to  _ run. _

_ Run for your life. _

Brambles tear at your skin and your hair. The First Order troops must’ve surrounded the extraction team very quickly, because you can see their white armor racing towards their Supreme Leader, and through the cracks in the trees, you see one of them topple to the ground with a burning hole in his armor, only paces from the gnarled roots you’ve ducked behind moments earlier.

Your eyes are wide.  _ It’s my fault,  _ you think. _ It’s all my fault.  _

But what do you owe any of them - First Order or Resistance? What could possibly compare to the cruel connection you share with Kylo Ren, forged in blood and sweat and tears? 

You did what you had to do to give him a chance, just like he’d done for you. That’s all that matters. This isn’t your fight. This isn’t your war.

It’s lasting longer than you’d expected, or maybe time has simply come to a standstill. You hear shouting about reinforcements, but you have no way of knowing which side they’re coming to reinforce. The air is thick with anger and panic, smothering you as you try to catch your breath. 

_ Breathe,  _ you think, plastering yourself against the bark of a tree as another soldier carves through the vines nearby.  _ Breathe. _

You peek around the trunk, eying the blaster lying by the fallen trooper’s side. If you’d had a plan when you’d pushed the button to activate the tracker, it’s long since fled your mind. You’ll be just as dead if the First Order or the Resistance shoots you - and that’s without even considering all of the dangers that lurk in the jungle, in the unthinkable scenario that both sides do leave you behind. 

You need a weapon -  _ some _ way to defend yourself. Kylo Ren can’t save you now.

But to take the blaster means you’ll have to go closer to the fight, closer to the chaos and smoke grenades and screaming of terrified and frightened soldiers. You make a mad dash for it, ignoring the thorns tearing through your clothes. 

A blaster bolt zings past your head, striking a nearby tree and sending splinters of bark spraying. “Don’t move,” someone calls out from behind you. You freeze in your tracks, your hands held helplessly by your sides, fingers spread wide so that whoever it is behind you knows that you’re unarmed - in case that even matters. “Turn around.”

It’s one of the Resistance members. You don’t know his name. You doubt he remembers yours. 

“You evil little bitch.”

You can’t even close your eyes as the blaster bolt seems to slice through the air in slow-motion; you’re paralyzed. After everything, it’s going to end like this. 

The bolt freezes in the air only a few inches from your heart, and Kylo lunges forward from the vines and weeds near your feet, his hand wrapping around your ankle as he topples you to the ground, the blaster bolt whizzing harmlessly overhead and splintering the bark of the tree it strikes behind you. 

He’s half on top of you, panting and sweaty and bleeding yet again, pressing your head into the damp forest floor. You barely hear the sickening crunch that precedes the soldier’s body hitting the ground nearby, overwhelmed by the screaming and blaster fire all around you. 

“Stay down,” Kylo hisses in your ear. 

“I thought you were dead,” you sob, awkwardly fumbling behind you to clutch at his cold fingers. “Kylo—”

“Not yet,” he says, and he shoves himself to his feet. His lightsaber speeds into his outstretched hand, igniting as he stamps his foot against the ground, his teeth clenched from the pain. “We aren’t dead yet, princess.”

The sounds of battle are dimming; someone is winning, and you hear calls for retreat like phantom voices through the trees.  _ Fear and pain. _ That’s all this place has brought - fear, pain… and  _ whatever _ it is you share with Kylo Ren.

Your feet feel rooted to the ground. Maybe that’s all that’s left for you. Maybe you’re meant to become a part of this place, planted there among the trees. Maybe it’s what you deserve, the logical penance for contributing to the misery that seems to linger in the very air of the jungle, timelessly oppressive.

“Kylo.”

He turns. “Come with me,” he says, holding out a hand. “Come with me.”

“Let them go.”

His hand drops to his side. “What?”

“The Resistance. If they’re trying to escape… tell your men to let them go.” For all the fear you can feel in the forest around you, none of it comes from Kylo Ren. No, Kylo Ren is all  _ rage _ \- an inferno kindled to wipe it all clean. “Please,” you say, your voice cracking. “Please.”

His chest heaves, his eyes wild. 

He holds his hand out to you again. 

“Okay?” you ask. “Kylo?”

“Okay,” he says. 

You take his hand, and he yanks you forward, dragging you back towards the clearing, his lightsaber blazing and blood seeping through his new Resistance-issue brown sweater. Some distant part of you finds the energy to be amused by the fact that you’re going to leave the planet dressed almost identically.

_ How the mighty have fallen, _ you think, and after that, taking note of how tightly he’s clinging to your hand,  _ How the lowly have risen. _

He holds you in the crook of his arm as you stagger into the clearing filled with his men, his officers hesitantly approaching to take his commands. “Back to the ship,” Kylo barks. “Call for a cease fire on the rebels. I’m not wasting more time on this planet.”

“Sir,” one of the uniformed officers begins, “the general—”

His words are cut short as he slams backwards into one of the troopers behind him, knocking both to the ground. Kylo points at him with his saber, his teeth clenched. “I didn’t  _ ask _ what the general ordered. Cease fire. We’re done here.”

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” one of the other uniformed officers says quickly. She turns to the trooper standing at her shoulder. “Escort the Supreme Leader to the landing site immediately.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Your head is reeling. You ignore the First Order troops falling into line all around you. It’s too much, and none of it matters. You press your palm against the spot on his sweater that won’t stop bleeding, trying to staunch the flow - trying to staunch the flow of pain and  _ fury _ seeping from his skin, so strong you can almost taste the metallic tinge of it on your tongue. 

_ Stop, _ you think.  _ Stop, stop. _

“This way, sir,” the storm trooper says. They surround Kylo - though they stay out of range of his still-lit saber, and he keeps his arm around you as they bustle the two of you through the jungle, the troopers handily hacking away brush and brambles with vibroblades. “Sir, we do have a stretcher…”

“I don’t need it,” Kylo says roughly. 

He looks like he’s ready to skewer the next person who wastes a breath trying to speak to him, so no one else does. You get a vicarious sort of thrill when one of the thorn vines springs up like a serpent, likely attracted by the commotion, and a few of the storm troopers yell in surprise and blast it to pieces.  _ Take that, _ you think.  _ Rot in hell. _

You kick one of the sizzling chunks of vine as you’re hurried past, and Kylo squeezes you closer. Apparently, vindictive outbursts are reserved for the Supreme Leader alone.

The ships, when they finally come into view, are such a precious sight that you could happily kiss every single one of the helmeted soldiers surrounding you in gratitude. They’re boxy, small transporters, though the clearing the First Order has blasted in the forest to land them provides a clear view of fighters circling overhead.

A man dressed in crisp white hurries up, his forehead already bearing a sheen of sweat from the humidity - or maybe it’s partly due to fear of his Supreme Leader. “Sir, should we assemble a medical unit to treat your injuries here—”

“No,” Kylo interrupts, and you’re a little glad to see that he interrupts everyone, and not just you. “Treat me on the transporter. We’re returning to my ship. Now.”

The medic’s gaze falls to you, his eyes wide. The crimson blaze of the lightsaber flickers, casting a glow against his skin, and you notice his throat bob. You can only assume that he’s terrified to mention you, since everyone else is strategically ignoring the fact that you’re tucked under Kylo Ren’s arm. “There’s only one med bay per transport, Supreme Leader,” he says weakly. “These smaller ships—”

Kylo thumbs off his saber, then gestures at one of the troopers standing at attention nearby, distinguishable from the others only by the red and black band around one of his arms. “You,” he says. “Take the girl.”

_ Don’t take the girl, _ you think, trying not to give in to the bubbling sensation of rising panic as the trooper takes you by the arm.

“This is the informant for the Resistance that I left to retrieve,” he says, his voice flat. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

The trooper’s grip on your arm tightens. “Yes, sir.”

_ No, _ you think, reaching out for him as you’re forcefully led towards one of the medical transports. Your palms are stained red, and you want to call out to him, to beg him to keep you by his side - but the hurt would be far worse if you did, and he chose to ignore your pleas.

_ Don’t let me leave. _


	11. Chapter 11

Your chest feels hollow. 

The inside of the medical transport is cramped, but almost unnervingly neat and tidy. The storm trooper escorting you presses you down into an odd reclining chair, outfitted with all sorts of tools and attachments that make you wary. There are more of the white-suited medics on board, and they seem eager to have something to do - almost relieved.

_ Relieved that they didn’t get the job of dealing with Kylo Ren, _ you realize.

“Lean back,” the trooper tells you, but instead of waiting for you to reply, he fastens a belt across your waist, cinching it tighter as you weakly try to brush him away. More soldiers pack into the transport, and the door closes, hydraulics hissing as the small crew prepares to leave the planet surface. Another strap is fastened across your shoulders, and then your wrists are strapped to the arms of the chair.

“Wait,” you protest. “I’m not trying to resist—”

“Everyone says that, you know,” one of the medics tells you. “But it’s for your own good. You aren’t in any condition to be jostled around… and we’re not risking an escape. The Supreme Leader seems to like capturing people who enjoy escaping.”

You lose any chances of being freed when your restraints when you curse and writhe like a wild animal when they start applying some kind of pungent, burning antiseptic to all of your cuts and scrapes. You’ve amassed far more of them than you’d realized. 

They have a bright light shining in your eyes, so you can barely make out the faces surrounding you. The medics discuss you like you aren’t even there at all; they ponder your age, they wonder if you’ve contracted any diseases from the jungle, they marvel at how you’ve managed to last so long with such poor nutrition. Apparently, from what you can glean from their conversation, that means it will likely take you longer to recover.

With any luck, you’ll be allotted a very nice First Order detention cell to recover in, and maybe - just maybe - the Supreme Leader will have someone drop you back off on Nar Shaddaa sooner or later, if he doesn’t forget about you entirely.

_ You close your eyes.  _ Your head is throbbing, and the light only makes it worse. I didn’t leave you behind, you think, hoping that he can somehow hear you.  _ I stayed with you, Kylo Ren. How could you let them take me away? _

“You might get a salty taste with this,” one of the nameless voices says. You flinch slightly when the needle pricks your arm, but you don’t open your eyes. “Try to keep still.”

Cold spreads through your veins, though, and you can’t help shivering. A soft sort of weight settles over you. “Think she’s gonna make it?” It’s the only voice you can identify, and it belongs to the trooper who brought you onto the transport. “Or is she too far gone?”

“I  _ hope _ she makes it. Otherwise, we probably won’t.”

“Wonderful. So, we die if we don’t keep the rebel alive long enough for Ren to execute her.”

“If you want to argue with the Supreme Leader, soldier, be my guest,” the other voice replies. 

The thought of anyone trying to argue with Kylo Ren nearly makes you laugh. You can’t laugh, though, even though there’s a giddy sort of feeling bubbling through you now. You can’t even open your eyes; the urge to panic is fleeting, and the weight on top of you seems to grow heavier. 

You aren’t asleep, but you aren’t really awake, either. It feels as if you’re floating in a void of nothingness, and your entire body seems to pulse to your heartbeat, reverberating from the beating echo that follows it, slower and steadier. The rhythmic thrum is soothing. You focus on that. You can’t feel when the ship leaves the planet’s atmosphere, or when it eventually settles into the hanger bay, but the muted voices of the medics keep you abreast of the transport’s progress.

There’s another flutter of panic when they move you, and you crack open one eye. It’s a mistake; there are rows upon rows of white-armored storm troopers waiting in the hangar bay, and their expressionless, helmeted heads don’t do much to soothe you.  _ This is it,  _ you think.  _ Kylo Ren did what he set out to do. He got me. Here I am.  _

You’ll have to offer your congratulations, next time you see him. 

You  _ will _ see him again, won’t you?

The bright hallways they wheel you down are endless, and the dimly-lit elevator makes you feel as though you’re descending into the underworld. Maybe you are. You’ve probably earned it.

“Where are we going?” you ask, surprising yourself when your words are actually audible - albeit a little more high-pitched and slurred than you would’ve liked. “Where are you taking me?”

“Quiet, prisoner.”

“Lemme up.” They don’t answer, and you try to sit up, forgetting that you’re strapped down. “Hey.”

“Quiet.”

“I’ll tell your boss on you, y’know.”

They unfasten you and prop you up, and you feel victorious for a moment, until you realize that it’s only because you’ve apparently reached your destination, and not due to your impressive threats. This room isn’t as bright as the others, thankfully, but your head still swims. 

One of the troopers hauls you to your feet, and he half-helps, half-drags you to a small, nondescript door recessed into the wall. It opens, revealing the largest bathroom you’ve ever seen in your life - bigger even than the one you shared with the other workers at the Burning Deck. It isn’t at all what you’d expected, and you step inside hesitantly, your hand on the countertop for support. 

“Come out when you’re finished,” he tells you, and then he presses a button on the wall, and the door slides shut. 

A laugh bubbles up, borne of exhausted disbelief. Maybe you were tracking too much jungle dirt through the pristine halls of their Star Destroyer. You wonder if this counts as letting you out of their sight. Will Kylo Ren be disappointed if you fall and crack your skull open trying to shower? 

It would be a very disappointing turn of events. 

You have to sit on the floor to peel off your clothes; your balance isn’t good enough to wiggle out of your pants on your own. Crawling into the refresher might not be very dignified, but at least nobody’s around to see it. Besides, you’ve been through much worse. 

Armed guards may wait outside the refresher, but you can’t bring yourself to care.  _ Clean,  _ you think, overjoyed by the blast of scalding water on your skin. It isn’t even a sonic ‘fresher - it’s  _ real _ water, like you’re some kind of princess. There’s soap, too, and you work yourself into a lather, not really sure why there seem to be so many different types of it on the little shelf recessed in the wall. 

After the jungle,  _ this _ is worth the First Order cell they’re going to shove you into once you’re acceptably disinfected. A med droid rolls out of a port in the wall to poke and prod at you once you’ve turned the water off, pronouncing you malnourished. 

_ Tell me something I don’t know,  _ you think. 

Another droplet of blood is collected, another injection administered. You sincerely hope that it’s something meant to help you. Even if they’re trying to sedate you again, though… really, you could use some dreamless sleep.

It seems like an eternity since you’ve seen your own reflection. You touch your face, wondering if your eyes have always looked so large, your skin so lifeless. Your gaze falls to the neat row of tiny, colorful bottles sitting on the counter below the mirror, and you run your fingertips over them, almost afraid to pick them up. 

Delicate little glass bottles seem almost as foreign to you as everything else on this ship. Part of you feels like you’ll never really leave the forest. The thought infuriates you - how  _ dare _ that wretched place try to claim any more of your life? 

Defiant, you snatch up one of the bottles and unscrew the lid, giving its contents an experimental whiff.  _ Sweet. Mild. _ It feels creamy to the touch, and you slather it on your skin, pleased to note that it makes you feel a little less dry and chapped.

Your clothes are gone, dumped into a trash chute by the droid, who beeped in haughty disapproval. You wouldn’t have wanted to put them back on, anyway. They were filthy and far beyond repair. Still, the fact that all you’re left to wear is a long, shapeless white robe is… uncomfortable. 

Everyone in the First Order is immaculately uniformed or armored, every inch of skin carefully covered. Even though the robe reaches your ankles, you still feel exposed.  _ They probably want prisoners to feel exposed, though. I doubt comfort is a high priority.  _

“I’m done,” you announce, leaning your cheek against the wall. You  _ do  _ feel refreshed, but you aren’t exactly in the mood to tackle torture and interrogation, either. 

The door opens, and you wonder for a moment if it was locked, or if they even consider you an escape risk at all. The Supreme Leader did warn them to keep you under watch, so maybe they’ve gotten the impression that you’re a lot better at escaping than you actually are. Either way, you can sense their frustration and curiosity, hidden behind their polished masks, and you’re certain they’re wondering what makes you such an important prisoner.

_ Manacles. _

Somehow, you hadn’t expected to feel the weight of them on your wrists again, and you try to remind yourself that this is the path you  _ chose. _ When you betrayed the Resistance to save Kylo Ren, you knew that you’d have to accept whatever consequences came with it. 

The halls are bare and uncomfortably white; you imagine they must require constant cleaning, because they’re completely spotless.  _ Sterile.  _ Every door you pass is sealed shut, and you brace yourself for the prison cell that you’re certain to find behind the door that waits for you. 

The troopers come to a halt. You anxiously twist your wrists, hoping that maybe they’ll get rid of the manacles once they deposit you in your cell, at least. You’re tired of manacles. 

The door opens. “Move, prisoner,” one of them orders, and you step forward into the darkness. The door closes behind you, and you blink, trying to adjust to the sudden change in light. 

It’s a large room, with expansive windows and polished furniture. There’s carpet on the floor, and you wiggle your bare toes, marvelling at the softness of it against your bruised, callused feet. Maybe whatever officer the assigned to question you forgot to show up. You’re tempted to lay down and hope that the First Order exists entirely.

Kylo Ren emerges from an adjoining room. He doesn’t seem at all surprised to see you. He barely waves his fingers, and the manacles fall to the carpet with a muted thud. He’s wearing a long black robe, and you nearly laugh at how terribly  _ cliché _ that is, but you can’t muster the nerve. From what you can see of his pale chest, it looks like he’s spent some time in a bacta tank, because the mottled bruising has already begun to fade. 

You hadn’t expected the sight to make you  _ feel _ quite so much.

“You’re doing personal interrogations?” you ask, trying to force some bravado into your voice. “I didn’t figure the Supreme Leader had time for—”

“No,” he says. 

Bravado isn’t working out all that well for you. 

Your back is pressed against the wall. In all of those days in the jungle, dying and desperate and clawing your way through the undergrowth right alongside him, he’d become less fearsome, somehow. You’d seen him brought low,  _ humanized. _ Strangely, it’s that open, broken sort of vulnerability in his eyes right now that makes you feel more fearful than his imposing stature or his purposeful strides against the room ever could.

Your smile is crooked. “I didn’t leave you behind,” you say, and you stiffen as he looms over you, pressing your palms flat against the wall as your exhausted mind rushes to evaluate this latest shift in the Supreme Leader’s mood.

“Neither did I,” he says.

He’s hesitant as he traces his fingertips along your collarbone, which has been made all the more prominent by your shared struggles in the wilderness. There’s bruising there, and when you flinch, so does he. He searches your eyes, and when you stay silent, he smooths his knuckles down the front of your robe, leaning so close that you can smell the spice of whatever shampoo he used.

“Do you know the first time I dreamed of you?” he asks, a rich, tantalizing whisper in your ear. His hand moves beneath your robe, splaying across the small of your back as he draws you closer. “That first night, princess.”

His warm skin sliding against yours makes your thoughts difficult to pin down. “I—”

“That first night, freezing to death under that damned tree. It was understandable. An expected biological response. I decided to forgive it. To forgive you. To forgive myself for the distraction.”

“Kylo—”

“I should’ve destroyed you. You should’ve destroyed me. You know what I am. You had the opportunity.”

Your breath hitches.

“Why?” he asks. “Why did you do it?”

“What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean. Why did you help me? Why did you keep my heart beating?”

“I didn’t—”

“Yes,” he says. “You  _ did.” _

You’re touching him, too; it’s an instinct, just as comforting now as it was all those nights in the forest, but laced with a dark, anticipatory sort of thrill. His skin is hot, and he watches you with eyes that are somehow both suspicious and reverent as your palm moves beneath the dark fabric, resting over his heart. 

You don’t  _ mean _ to cry; when a tear rolls down your cheek, you’re taken aback. “I didn’t want you to go,” you tell him. It seems like the most obvious answer in the world. It’s so simple. Is it really so difficult for him to believe? The confusion on his face seems to suggest that it is.

You press your fingertips more forcefully against his skin.  _ Closer. _ You just want to be closer to him, to feel the certainty that the one person in the galaxy who’d been ready to give his life fighting for yours is  _ there, _ that he’s flesh and blood and  _ real. _

You want him to understand that. You  _ need _ him to understand that. 

“I didn’t want you to go,” you say again, and another tear spills. “I  _ should, _ but—”

“I know,” he interrupts, and he ducks his head and kisses you, his lips soft against yours. When he repeats himself, his heart pounding beneath your fingers, his nose brushing your cheek, his voice barely a murmur. “I know.”

You’ve never been kissed before, despite many of your patrons back in the bar’s enthusiastic, drunken attempts. In your wildest dreams, you’d never expected Kylo Ren to be a gentle kisser. He bites down on your lip, almost as if he knows what you’re thinking - and maybe he does. 

Your hand moves from his heart to his throat, and he groans as you twine your fingers in the still-damp curls at the nape of his neck. You break away from his kiss, uncertain. “Did I hurt you?” you ask him.

“You’re destroying me,” he tells you, and he nearly lifts you off your feet when he crushes you against his chest - and  _ there’s _ the Kylo Ren you’d imagined in your daydreams, nipping your bottom lip and tasting your tongue when you gasp. 

He’s in no shape to be picking you up, and you probably aren’t in any shape to be thrown around, but that doesn’t stop Kylo from scooping you up into his arms, and it doesn’t lessen your excitement when he drops you onto his bed before you barely even have time to process that he’s swept you off into another room.

The room is dark, aside from starlight spilling through the thin curtains covering the windows, and you’re grateful for it. The darkness is soothing. The darkness is where you’ve found warmth and rest... and Kylo Ren. 

Your hand moves further beneath his robe, fingers following a scar that runs around his ribs nearly reaches his spine. When your leg wraps around his, he hisses and breaks away, his face contorted. “Kriff,” you begin, “I’m sorry—”

“It’ll heal,” Kylo says. His forehead rests against yours, and he lets out a shuddering breath, suspiciously close to a laugh. “I imagined this, you know. Having you underneath me like this. And now I can’t do all of the things I want to do to you, because I can barely move.”

His hair is tickling your cheek, and you tuck some of it behind his ear. “You did?”

“I did tell you I’d find a place for you on my ship, didn’t I?” 

“True,” you say, “but this wasn’t really what I’d imagined.”

“Well, I’m not sending you to the kitchens,” he says, shifting his weight so that he settles more firmly between your legs. “You’re an awful cook.”

Kylo Ren laughs, then, and it takes you right back to that moment you both crawled out of the river, exhilarated by simply  _ surviving. _ He moves down your body, trailing his lips in a heated path down your skin, parting your robe as he goes. You don’t know what to do; the entire day has been a series of one unbelievable moment right after the other, and you’d been braced for pain, not for  _ this. _

“What are you doing?” you ask him, trembling as he decides to pay particular attention to a spot just below your hip bone with his tongue and teeth. He seems to be enjoying the fact that you can’t keep still, and he slides his arms under your legs, his large hands splaying across your belly as he holds you firmly against his bed.

“Whatever I want,” he replies, and some of the cockiness is back in his voice, but when you tug on his hair, he pauses. “I want to convince you to stay. Here, with me.”

It seems like a moment best left unbroken by words, and you wouldn’t know what to say, anyway. You’re too tense, too overwhelmed, too—

His tongue moves to your center, then, and your back arches as he laps at you, slowly, methodically - so unlike the untempered way he usually unleashes his every emotion. You curse and clutch the sheets on his fine bed, trying not to tighten your legs around him, ever-wary of his wounded shoulder, but the insufferable man is making it  _ very _ difficult for you to be so considerate. 

He seems like he knows precisely the effect he’s having on you, too - and of  _ course _ he does. He’s Kylo Ren. He always has to have the advantage. “Have you done this before?” 

He looks up at you, his expression of innocent puzzlement making an interesting contrast to what he’s actually in the process of  _ doing. _ He licks his lips, and you feel a little faint. “No. Am I doing it wrong?”

Your head falls back against the pillow. “I like it,” you admit softly, your skin on fire. As soon as the words leave your lips, he resumes his assault - because that gentle encouragement is apparently all that it takes for Kylo Ren to decide that aggressive enthusiasm outweighs methodical precision.  _ “Kylo.” _

He groans and rests his cheek against your thigh, his stubble tickling your sensitive skin. “Say it again,” he says. “Say it again, princess, and I’ll never let you leave.”

“Kylo.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 🖤


End file.
